A flyer who survived the deadly 1992 plane crash at LaGuardia Airport told The Post he was reminded how lucky he was to see his kids grow up when fresh tragedy struck the travel hub Sunday.
Ohio resident Bart Simon was one of just 24 souls to survive the March 22, 1992, crash at LaGuardia exactly 34 years before another plane slammed into a fire truck there late Sunday night, killing the two pilots and injuring scores of people.
He told The Post on Tuesday that the link between the two deadly crashes was “incredibly ironic and bizarre”: Not only did the two crashes take place on the same date, but he correctly pointed out they both occurred on the same day of the week.
After Sunday’s crash, “I thought back to how lucky I was to be able to get out of that plane when I did because where I was seated in that plane, it actually cracked open close to where I was so when I was able to get out of my seatbelt, I walked right out of the plane and into the water,” Simon, 78, said.
“I was thinking about that, how I was lucky enough to escape really that wreckage.
“I was lucky enough to come home, be able raise my children, they had a father, travel with them, watch them grow up, send them to college, watch them graduate college, travel with my wife a lot, and I had a business that allowed me to live a nice lifestyle,” he said.
“I was very, very fortunate. The most wonderful part of it I got second chance to raise my kids.”
Simon said that when he heard about the crash Monday morning, he texted his college friends about the connection.
“I told them … ‘how strange and ironic and bizarre that something like this could happen on March 22 — 34 years later,’ and they said, ‘Yeah, life is pretty strange and unexplainable sometimes.’ ”
Simon recalled that when USAir Flt. 405 attempted to take off from LaGuardia in 1991, it struggled to climb and instead tumbled into the chilly Flushing Bay.
He was knocked out for about 30 seconds when his head hit the seat in front of him. But where he was on the cabin allowed him to walk off the plane onto the rocks in the water near the tarmac after the aircraft broke apart.
He needed a few stitches and was sent to a hotel from the hospital that night. The next day, he arrived at LaGuardia again, picked up a copy of the now-defunct New York Newsday that had the crash on the cover and flew home safely.
He still has a photo of the newspaper cover in his Shaker Heights home. A few years later, he made it a point to fly out of LaGuardia again — though in the weeks following the crash he relieved in every night.
Overall, 27 passengers and crew members killed, while other passengers suffered worse injuries.
Sunday’s pilots, Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther, were the two fatalities after the front of the Air Canada plane they were flying was destroyed when it crashed into the fire truck.
Simon said his message to the passengers that all survived the most recent tragedy is try to move past the trauma.
“My advice to them is to try to compartmentalize it, put it in the past and move on with your life,” he said.
“You’re lucky enough to survive and just count your blessings and your luck and move on. Sometimes it’s easier said than done but that would be my advice to them. Try to get over it as quickly as possible and get back to your life.”
