A series of failures culminated in Sunday’s fatal collision between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The fire truck lacked a transponder that would have triggered an alarm moments before it collided with the landing jet, Jennifer Homendy, the NTSB’s chairperson, said during a news conference.
“Air traffic controllers should know what’s before them, whether it’s on airport surface or in the airspace,” Homendy said. “They should have that information to ensure safety.”
However, she emphasized that overlapping failures involving technology and human performance preceded the crash, which killed both pilots aboard the plane and injured dozens of others, including the two firefighters in the fire truck.
“When something goes wrong, it means many, many things went wrong,” Homendy said.
Homendy cautioned that her conclusions were preliminary, and the agency’s investigation continues. Investigators have not yet interviewed key witnesses, including the two air traffic controllers on duty at LaGuardia on Sunday and the driver and passenger from the fire truck. They also still have to analyze cockpit and flight data recorders.
Homendy said investigators want to know more about a second, unrelated emergency that the air traffic controllers were handling at the time of the collision. But she rejected speculation that the controllers were too distracted to prevent the crash.
“I would caution against pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” she said. “This is a heavy workload environment.”
‘Stop, Truck 1, stop!’
The fire truck was responding to a United plane on another runway after its crew reported that passengers were feeling ill from a strong odor in the cabin.
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An air traffic controller frantically tried to contact the fire truck to warn it of the approaching Air Canada plane, according to audio and video footage reviewed by The New York Times.
“Stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1, stop, stop, stop,” the controller radioed to the truck.
Six seconds later, according to The Times, the controller repeated: “Stop, Truck 1, stop!”
Passengers onboard the jet later said a flight attendant had warned of an emergency landing moments before the collision.
The plane was a little more than 100 feet in the air when a controller cleared the fire truck to cross the runway, according to the NTSB. Twenty seconds later, the plane and the truck collided.
After the crash, an air traffic controller could be heard saying the tower’s staff was “dealing with an emergency earlier” and “I messed up.” It is not clear if it’s the same air traffic controller.
Flight delays continue
LaGuardia was closed to all traffic after the collision and did not reopen until Monday afternoon.
On Tuesday, the airport reported extreme delays, in part because of a shortage of Transportation Security Administration agents but also because the runway where the collision occurred remained closed.
Wreckage remained on the runway on Tuesday, and investigators expected their work there to continue for several days.
About one-fourth of flights into and out of LaGuardia were canceled Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
