Investigators are seeking the cause of a runway collision late Sunday between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
The jet’s pilot and co-pilot died when the crash sheared off the nose of the plane. A flight attendant was ejected but was later found alive.
Air traffic controllers may have been distracted at the time of the collision, The New York Times reported Monday. The fire truck was responding to another plane after a pilot reported an unusual odor in the cabin. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier” before the Air Canada jet and the fire truck collided, an air traffic controller said on control tower audio reviewed by The Times.
The crash shut down the airport overnight and halted all flights. The airport reopened about 2 p.m. ET on Monday.
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Collision during landing roll
The plane, a CRJ-900 regional jet operated by Jazz Aviation for Air Canada, was arriving from Montreal and had was slowing on the runway when the collision occurred shortly before midnight. Flight tracking data shows the aircraft was moving at low speed at impact — 24 mph, according to CBS News.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia, said 41 passengers and crews were taken to hospitals and all but 32 were soon released. The plane was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members. Two first responders on the fire truck also were hospitalized.
Air traffic control audio captured the moments before impact, with a controller instructing the vehicle to stop seconds before the collision, according to a LiveATC.net recording.
Light rain was falling at the time of the collision, but officials did not immediately suspect the weather as a factor.
Investigation focuses on runway coordination
The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to New York to lead the crash investigation. Officials are expected to focus on how the aircraft and the emergency vehicle were cleared to be on the same runway.
On X, the NTSB posted a picture Monday of investigators walking around the wrecked plane before it was removed from the runway.
At a news conference Monday afternoon, Bryan Bedford, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency would “take concrete actions to ensure something like this will never happen again.”
“I want to extend my sympathies for the families of the two pilots,” Bedford said. “These were two young men at the start of their career, so it’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss.”
