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NEW YORK (AP) — In a harrowing incident at LaGuardia Airport, a fire truck was mistakenly cleared to cross a runway just moments before an Air Canada flight was about to land. With only 12 seconds to avert disaster, the collision resulted in the tragic deaths of both pilots, federal investigators disclosed on Tuesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is delving deeply into the safety system failures that led to the fire truck’s unauthorized presence on the runway this past Sunday night. Their investigation aims to uncover the breakdowns in the airport’s extensive safety protocols that should have prevented such a catastrophe.
Key areas of focus include examining whether the standard practice of having just two air traffic controllers on duty overnight is sufficient, why the runway’s warning system failed to alert personnel of an impending collision, and determining who held responsibility for coordinating both air and ground traffic at the time. Additionally, investigators are seeking to understand if the fire truck received and comprehended the controller’s desperate last-minute warnings to halt.
“We rarely, if ever, encounter a major accident stemming from a single point of failure,” remarked NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “A cascade of errors must have occurred for this tragedy to unfold.”
The Air Canada flight, which originated from Montreal and carried over 70 passengers, collided with the fire truck, resulting in injuries to several passengers. However, thanks to swift emergency responses, most were able to evacuate the severely damaged aircraft. Remarkably, a flight attendant, who remained strapped in her seat, survived after being ejected onto the tarmac during the impact.
NTSB investigators have not yet interviewed the firefighters, who were also injured, or found whether they braked or turned to avoid the collision, Homendy said.
2 controllers were on duty at the time of crash
Investigators want to know more about the role of the air traffic controllers and what they were doing while juggling a late-night emergency involving another plane — a strong odor reported in the cabin of an outbound United Airlines jet.
Homendy warned against jumping to conclusions.
“I would caution against pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved. This is a heavy workload environment,” she said.
Having two controllers on duty in the control tower is typical for a late night shift but has long been a concern for the NTSB, she said. Both were early into the their shift when the crash happened.
The tower at LaGuardia had been busier than expected Sunday night because flight delays pushed the number of arrivals and departures after 10 p.m. to more than double what was scheduled, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
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. At the same time, the tower was coordinating the emergency response to the unusual odor making flight attendants feel ill.
Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation safety expert who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration, said this crash may lead to questions about whether having two controllers on the overnight shift is enough at major airports.
That has been the minimum since 2018, when the FAA imposed that requirement after several instances of controllers falling asleep while working solo.
FAA encouraged airports to install transponders on vehicles
LaGuardia is one of 35 major U.S. airports with an advanced surface surveillance system to help eliminate dangerous runway incursions and prevent crashes.
Controllers in these airports have a display in the tower that’s supposed to show them the location of every plane and vehicle.
The system, known as ASDE-X, didn’t work as intended this time because the fire truck wasn’t outfitted with a transponder, Homendy said. There were also emergency vehicles behind the fire truck that stopped in time, and the close proximity of the vehicles merging kept the system from triggering an alarm, she said.
More work is needed to determine whether an alert could have prevented the crash, she said.
Just last May, the FAA urged the 35 airports that have advanced surface surveillance systems like LaGuardia’s to equip their vehicles with transponders and said federal money was available to help pay for them.
While the NTSB hasn’t recommended that vehicles on airport grounds have transponders, they should be standard equipment, Homendy said.
“Air traffic controllers should know what’s before them, whether it’s on airport surface or in the airspace. They should have that information to ensure safety,” she said.
Asked about the lack of a transponder in the fire truck, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, said it was “unable to comment due to the ongoing investigation.”
Timeline shows the final seconds before impact
The NTSB laid out a timeline of the final moments after reviewing the Air Canada jet’s cockpit voice recorder, which authorities recovered by cutting a hole in the aircraft’s roof.
Investigators said that 25 seconds before the crash, the fire truck asked to cross the same runway where the plane had already been cleared to land nearly two minutes earlier.
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, the NTSB found.
Then, just nine seconds before the two collided, the tower told the fire truck to stop — a second before the plane’s landing gear touched down, the NTSB said.
Homendy said that it appears that the airport’s runway status lights were working, which might have warned the fire truck driver not to cross the runway 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 enter that runway.
The controller could also see the vehicles and the plane out the tower window, said John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems. But there simply may not have been enough time to prevent the crash once the fire truck pulled onto the runway.
Travel delays mount after LaGuardia crash
The crash came at a time of increasing frustration with air travel in the U.S., caused by long security lines because of the government shutdown, winter storms and rising costs.
While flights resumed Monday at LaGuardia — the New York region’s third busiest airport — the runway where the collision happened was still closed.
About one quarter of the airport’s flights were canceled Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com, and there were significant delays averaging more than four hours. But it did not appear the cancellations were spilling over to other airports around the U.S.
The pilot and copilot who died in the first fatal crash at LaGuardia in 34 years were both based out of Canada, said Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority.
About 40 people, including the two from the fire truck, were taken to hospitals. Some suffered serious injuries, most were released within hours, and others walked away without needing treatment.
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