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Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said a LaGuardia air traffic controller cleared a fire truck to cross a runway moments before an Air Canada flight landed, setting up a final stretch of seconds that left little time to prevent a collision that killed both pilots. The NTSB said the crash occurred after the vehicle was cleared to cross the runway moments before the arrival, and it is now working to determine which safety layers failed and allowed the truck onto the runway.
The NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, said investigators are not focused on a single mistake. “We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure,” Homendy said. “When something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong.” She also cautioned against “pointing fingers at controllers” and said the controller environment is a “heavy workload environment.”
Homendy said the NTSB is examining whether the late-night staffing practice of having two controllers on duty is enough at major airports. She said that having two controllers in the control tower is typical for late-night shifts and that both were early in their shift when the crash happened. Investigators are also looking at what role controllers played while managing a late-night emergency involving a separate plane, which included a “strong odor” reported in the cabin of an outbound United Airlines jet.
The NTSB’s timeline described how the final seconds unfolded. Investigators said that 25 seconds before the crash, the fire truck asked to cross the same runway where the Air Canada plane had already been cleared to land nearly two minutes earlier. The NTSB said one controller cleared the truck to cross the runway five seconds later when the plane was a little more than 100 feet (30 meters) from the ground, and then nine seconds before the collision the tower told the fire truck to stop—about a second before the plane’s landing gear touched down.
Homendy said it appears that the airport’s runway status lights were working, which might have warned the truck driver not to cross even if the controller approved it. The lights embedded in the pavement are designed to automatically turn red when a runway is occupied to signal to vehicle operators and pilots not to enter that runway. John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said the controller could also see the vehicles and the plane out the tower window, but that there “simply may not have been enough time to prevent the crash once the fire truck pulled onto the runway,” given the sequence.
The NTSB also pointed to the limits of runway-safety technology in this specific event. Homendy said LaGuardia is one of 35 major U.S. airports with an advanced surface surveillance system intended to help eliminate runway incursions, and that controllers in those airports have a display meant to show them the location of every plane and vehicle. She said that system, known as ASDE-X, did not work as intended because the fire truck was not outfitted with a transponder, and she said emergency vehicles behind the truck stopped in time while the close proximity of the vehicles merging kept the system from triggering an alarm.
Homendy said the NTSB is still determining whether an alert could have prevented the crash, and she connected the discussion to a federal push for airport vehicles. She said the FAA encouraged the 35 airports with systems like LaGuardia’s to equip their vehicles with transponders in just last May and said federal money was available to help pay for them. Homendy said that while the NTSB had not recommended transponders for vehicles on airport grounds, such equipment should be standard.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia, said it was “unable to comment due to the ongoing investigation” when asked about the lack of a transponder in the fire truck. Investigators said they have not yet interviewed the firefighters, who were also injured, or determined whether they braked or turned to avoid the collision, Homendy said. The NTSB said it built the timeline after reviewing the Air Canada plane’s cockpit voice recorder, which authorities recovered by cutting a hole in the aircraft’s roof.
The crash also came during a period of increased operational strain for air travel in the United States. Investigators and officials said the airport’s tower had been busier than expected because flight delays pushed arrivals and departures after 10 p.m. to more than double what was scheduled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. The NTSB said planes were landing every few minutes, with a dozen flights arriving between 11 p.m. and when the crash happened less than 40 minutes later, while the tower coordinated an emergency response to the unusual odor on the United Airlines flight.
After the collision, the runway where the crash occurred remained closed, and officials and flight-tracking data showed disruptions. While flights resumed Monday at LaGuardia, the runway was still closed, and about one quarter of the airport’s flights were canceled Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com, with delays averaging more than four hours. Investigators said the two pilots who died were based out of Canada.
About 40 people, including the two from the fire truck, were taken to hospitals. Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority, said some suffered serious injuries, most were released within hours, and others walked away without needing treatment. Investigators are still working through the aircraft-recording evidence and the operational details, and they said they want to know more about how airport coordination and warnings functioned in the final seconds before impact.
As the NTSB continues, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the investigation may lead to questions about whether having two controllers on the overnight shift is enough at major airports, after the FAA imposed that requirement in 2018 following instances in which controllers fell asleep while working solo.