An Air Canada Express passenger plane collided with a fire truck while landing late Sunday night at LaGuardia Airport, killing both pilots, injuring dozens of people and shutting down the airport, authorities said.
operated by Air Canada Express partner Jazz Aviation, was carrying 72 passengers and a crew of four and had taken off from Montreal, said Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Airport Authority of New York and New Jersey. Jazz is owned by Chorus Aviation.
Garcia said 32 of the 41 injured have been discharged, while nine remain in hospital with “serious injuries”. These include passengers, crew members and the two police officers who were in the fire engine.
What is that bright red spot on the wreckage of the Air Canada plane? This angle is terrifying. Doesn’t even look real.
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888)
What are the authorities investigating about the accident?
Aviation safety experts said investigators will look at air traffic control staffing levels at the airport, the actions of the fire engine controller and crew, and the location of the vehicle.
“The Air Canada jet had apparently been cleared to land and it appears from the radio communications that the airport’s rescue and firefighting vehicle had also been cleared to depart. There are a lot of questions now about communications,” said US aviation security expert Anthony Brickhouse. “Communications will be an important part of this investigation.”
U.S. airports have recently struggled to deal with shortages of air traffic controllers, and they are also facing shortages of Transportation Security Administration staff due to a partial shutdown of government services that is causing flight delays across the country.
Garcia said the fire truck was responding to a United Airlines flight that had “reported an odor issue.” A few minutes earlier, a United Airlines flight had reported an emergency due to an odor inside the plane. The controllers had informed the crew that fire engines were already on the scene.
What the audio documents “show”.
According to air traffic control audio recordings, a fire engine had been cleared to cross Runway 4, where the crash occurred.
Several minutes later, according to the audio recording, a controller can be heard saying: “Stop, stop, stop, vehicle 1 stop, vehicle 1, stop.”
The plane collided with the fire truck at a speed of 39 kilometers per hour, the website Flightradar24 reported, which has recorded data up to 11:37 p.m. (local time, 05:37 Greek time).
Listen to the dialogues:
Audio from Air Traffic Control when plane collided with fire truck at New York airport:
“Stop Truck 1, stop!”
“We were dealing with an emergency earlier and I messed up”
— BNO News (@BNONews)
Hundreds of flights were cancelled
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that it is deploying a team of experts to investigate the incident, while the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that the airport is expected to remain closed today until 2 pm. (20:00 Greek time).
So far 537 flights have been canceled at this airport.
