The preliminary report described how a sequence of problems unfolded around the time of the March 22 collision at LaGuardia, where federal investigators said aircraft and ground-vehicle movements came together in a way the systems meant to prevent would not. The NTSB said the crash involved a regional jet and a fire truck that was responding to an emergency, and it pointed to equipment and procedural factors that limited the ability of controllers to detect and avoid the conflict in real time.
Investigators said the Air Canada Express flight—Flight 8646—departed Montreal with 76 people aboard and then landed before colliding with the fire truck seconds later. Federal investigators reported that pilots Antoine Forest, 30, and Mackenzie Gunther, 24, were killed in the crash, and that 39 people were taken to hospitals with injuries, including two people in the fire truck. The episode, the AP report said, was the first deadly crash at LaGuardia in 34 years.
The NTSB’s account placed the collision in an unusually busy operating period. Two air traffic controllers were on duty on the night of the crash, consistent with normal scheduling, but the report said LaGuardia traffic was heavier than usual because flight delays pushed the number of arrivals and departures after 10 p.m. to more than double what was scheduled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. It said planes were landing every few minutes before the crash and that the controllers had to reshuffle responsibilities because of an emergency involving another aircraft—described in the report as a strong odor on a United Airlines jet—at the same time.
According to the NTSB report, one controller was coordinating the United emergency response while continuing to authorize takeoffs and landings, while the other controller took over directing vehicles on the ground. The collision involved a fire truck leading a convoy of vehicles responding to the ground emergency, placing multiple movements in the same time window as the Air Canada jet touched down.
The preliminary findings also focused on the fire truck’s equipment. The NTSB said LaGuardia uses an advanced surface surveillance system, known as ASDE-X, which combines radar data with transponder information from aircraft and ground vehicles to help prevent collisions. The report said the fire truck involved in the crash—and the other vehicles in its convoy—were not equipped with transponders, and that this limited the system’s ability to distinguish the vehicles; radar targets intermittently merged on the tower display, and the system did not sound an alarm to alert controllers.
Another key factor in the NTSB’s description involved runway lighting meant to warn crossing traffic. The report said air traffic control transmissions cleared the Air Canada flight to land at 11:35 p.m., and that about two minutes later, roughly 25 seconds before the crash, the fire crew asked to cross the same runway. The report said the Air Canada flight was about 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground when a controller cleared the fire truck to cross, while warning red lights on the runway were still illuminated. It said the lights remained on until the truck reached the edge of the runway, about three seconds before the collision, and that the lights by design turn off two or three seconds before an aircraft reaches a runway intersection.
Former airline pilot John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said the warning system signaled that the truck should not have entered while the lights were on. He described the system as automated and said that even if a controller clears a crossing, the lights indicate an airplane is either on the runway or about to be. The AP report also said Guzzetti suggested it may have been hard to see the runway lights before the crash because it was dark and the pavement was wet.
The NTSB’s summary also described the controller’s final attempt to prevent the collision. The report said nine seconds before the crash, when the controller realized the plane and truck were set to collide, he told the fire crew: “Stop, stop, stop, stop. Truck 1. Stop, stop, stop, stop.” It said the fire truck’s turret operator later told investigators he recalled hearing “stop, stop, stop” but did not know who the words were intended for until he heard “Truck 1,” and that he then noticed the truck had already entered the runway while turning left and spotting the plane’s lights.
Cox said it was understandable the driver might not have recognized the first stop call as intended for the truck, given that the controller was giving instructions to multiple vehicles in succession. But Cox also said he was not sure the truck would have been able to stop in time even if the driver slammed the brakes at the first stop call, because the NTSB said the truck had reached 29 mph (47 kph) before it entered the runway. The report said Cox added that, given the truck’s speed and weight, the vehicle “isn’t going to stop on a dime.”