A preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report says a firefighter assigned to a runway emergency at New York’s LaGuardia Airport heard repeated “stop” warnings from an air traffic controller but initially did not realize the calls were directed at his truck before the truck collided with an Air Canada Express jet, killing both pilots.
The investigation centers on events at LaGuardia on March 22, when the fire truck’s convoy collided with a CRJ900 regional jet, according to the NTSB’s preliminary report released Thursday. The report said the controller had cleared the truck to cross the runway shortly before the landing aircraft reached the touchdown point, even as warning lights that function as a stop signal for crossing traffic were still illuminated.
The NTSB said the truck started moving while the runway entrance warning lights—designed to act as a stop sign for vehicles—were still lit. Those lights stay on until the fire truck reaches the runway edge, the report said, turning off two or three seconds before an aircraft reaches a runway intersection by design. In the NTSB’s account, the lights remained on until roughly three seconds before the collision.
The agency also described a breakdown in the airport’s monitoring and alerting. Because the fire truck lacked a transponder, the airport’s surface monitoring system in the control tower “was unable to reliably determine its position,” the NTSB said. The report said the system “did not predict a potential conflict” with the landing plane and did not generate an audio or visual alert, pointing to a series of failures that contributed to the crash.
After the controller’s initial warning, the report said the fire truck’s turret operator heard the command “Truck 1, stop, stop, stop” and understood at that point that the controller was telling the vehicle to halt. But by then, Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was already landing and speeding toward the collision, according to the NTSB. The report said the plane registered a speed of 104 mph (167 kph) just before impact, while the fire truck was traveling about 30 mph (48 kph).
The NTSB said the fire truck was leading a convoy responding to an emergency tied to an odor on a United Airlines jet, with multiple fire trucks plus a police car and a stair truck included in the response. The controller cleared the convoy to cross the runway just 12 seconds before the plane touched down, the report said, and about eight seconds later the controller began calling for the truck to stop.
Aviation safety experts who reviewed the preliminary findings pointed to multiple decision points. Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation safety expert, said, after reviewing the report, “There were so many opportunities where this accident could have been prevented.” He said in addition that the report suggests the pilots had a chance to recognize the danger and pull up, but that they may have been “too dialed into landing.”
Another aviation safety consultant, John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems, suggested it may have been understandable that the truck driver did not recognize the first “stop” call as meant for him because, in the moments before the repeated warning, the controller had just been directing a plane on a taxiway and did not say “Truck 1” at the start of the command. Cox also referenced the warning lights and said the truck should never have entered the runway while the lights were illuminated, describing the system as automated in a way that should alert a driver that an aircraft is on or about to be at the intersection.
The NTSB report also described limitations of the advanced surface surveillance system used at LaGuardia, known as ASDE-X, which combines radar data with transponder information from planes and ground vehicles. The report said the system did not sound an alarm partly because radar struggled to distinguish closely spaced trucks and targets intermittently merged on the display. It said only two targets were displayed just before the crash even though there were seven vehicles in the convoy, and none of the vehicles had transponders that would have enabled the system to track their positions precisely.
The report said Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was cleared to land on Runway 4 at 11:35 p.m., and that the fire crew requested permission to cross the same runway about two minutes later. It said an air traffic controller cleared the fire truck to cross five seconds later while the aircraft was about a little more than 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground. Then, about nine seconds before the crash, the controller issued the repeated order: “Stop, stop, stop, stop. Truck 1. Stop, stop, stop, stop,” with the plane’s landing gear touching down a second later, according to the NTSB.
The plane was carrying 76 people, and the two pilots who died were identified by the NTSB report as Antoine Forest, 30, and Mackenzie Gunther, 24. It was the first deadly crash at LaGuardia in 34 years, the report said. In all, the NTSB said 39 people were taken to hospitals, including six described as seriously injured. The two fire truck crew members were recovering at home after being released from the hospital, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said; the Port Authority operates LaGuardia.
The Port Authority said it is conducting a comprehensive review of the NTSB’s initial findings. It said, “Our focus is straightforward: ensure our safety procedures and protocols are as strong as they can be and take action to strengthen them as needed,” according to the report.
Separately, the report said LaGuardia was busier than usual the night of the crash because flight delays pushed the number of arrivals and departures after 10 p.m. to more than double what was scheduled, citing aviation analytics firm Cirium. The NTSB said two air traffic controllers were on duty, consistent with normal scheduling, and that they had to shuffle responsibilities because of the United Airlines emergency while still authorizing takeoffs and landings.
This story has been corrected to show that pilot Antoine Forest was 30, not 24; and pilot Mackenzie Gunther was 24, not 30.