LaGuardia airport’s runway safety system ‘did not alert’ at time of deadly Air Canada jet and fire truck collision, NTSB says

The airport runway safety system at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport “did not alert” air traffic controllers before an Air Canada jet and a fire truck collided on the runway on Sunday night, investigators said on Tuesday.

The crash killed two pilots and injured dozens of passengers, many of whom have since been released from the hospital, officials said.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that LaGuardia has a surface detection system on the runway that allows air traffic controllers to track the movement of planes and vehicles, but the system “did not alert.”

An analysis of the system found that it “did not generate an alert due to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in the inability to create a track of high confidence,” Homendy said at a Tuesday news conference.

The NTSB also found that the fire truck involved in the collision did not have a transponder, which identifies a vehicle and its location, so the truck wouldn’t have been visible on certain air traffic control systems. Homendy later added that none of the trucks at LaGuardia had transponders. “There are transponders on other trucks at other airports across the nation, and in this case they did not have transponders,” she said.

NTSB investigators cannot confirm how many controllers were on duty at the time of the collision because of conflicting log entries. They do know that two people — the local controller and the controller in charge — were staffed in the air traffic control tower at the time of the collision. Two controllers are “the standard operating procedure for LaGuardia for the midnight shift,” Homendy said, adding that the controller in charge was performing the duties of two operators.

While the NTSB has been concerned about fatigue from the midnight shift in prior investigations, there is no evidence to suggest fatigue was an issue so far in this investigation, Homendy said.

“I would caution against pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” Homendy told reporters. “This is a heavy workload environment.” She stressed that it’s rare for aviation accidents to be caused by just one single failure. “When something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong,” she said.

Investigators are currently analyzing cockpit and flight data and still need to interview key witnesses in the collision, including the two injured Port Authority employees who were inside the fire truck, as well as the air traffic controllers.

Homendy declined to identify the two pilots who were killed and referred reporters to the New York City chief medical examiner.

LaGuardia Airport, located in the Queens borough of New York City, is experiencing significant delays and cancellations on Tuesday. The crash damaged the aircraft’s nose and prompted LaGuardia to shut down on Monday morning, leading air traffic to be diverted. Flights resumed at a reduced capacity at 2 p.m. ET on Monday, but the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t expect the runway where the accident happened to reopen until Friday.

Homendy said Monday evening there is a “tremendous amount of debris” from the collision, all of which investigators need to go through, collect and document as evidence before that runway could be reopened.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Monday that the two pilots who died were “young men at the start of their careers” and called the incident an “absolute tragedy.”

Following the crash, a flight attendant was found still strapped in a jump seat after it had been ejected from the aircraft, multiple media outlets reported. The employee was injured but is expected to survive. There was also an unaccompanied minor on the flight, and they have since been reunited with their family, Garcia said.

The Air Canada plane, operated by Jazz Aviation, carried 72 passengers and four crew members.

The fire truck involved in the collision was traveling across the runway to respond to a separate incident on board a United Airlines flight that had reported an odor issue. Moments before the crash, audio of an air traffic controller revealed that they gave clearance to a vehicle to cross part of the tarmac. Moments later, a controller can be heard saying, “Stop, stop, stop, truck 1 stop, truck 1, stop.”

Later in the audio transmission, a distraught controller appears to say, “We were dealing with an emergency earlier, and I messed up.”

Preliminary data shows that the Air Canada plane was traveling between 93 and 105 mph when it collided with the fire truck, ABC News reported, citing FlightRadar24.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that he’s been asking Congress “for additional money” for air traffic control. “We are modernizing our system, but we can’t fully modernize it until the Congress gives us the additional money.”

“I’m not saying that this crash would have been prevented if we had all the equipment deployed,” Duffy added, “but it’s important if we care about air travel safety, we care about having a brand-new air traffic control system, the best in the world, with the best equipment, virtually all of it developed here in America.”

President Trump called the fatal accident “terrible” as he answered a question from a reporter on Monday morning in Florida. “They made a mistake. It’s a dangerous business,” Trump said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the collision “deeply saddening” in a Monday post on X. He expressed his sympathies, writing, “My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all those impacted.”

An Air Canada passenger recounted her experience on board the plane as it collided with the fire truck. “When we landed, everyone felt it,” Rebecca Liquori told News 12. “The plane, like, jolted, and you heard the pilot try to brake, like he was trying to prevent the collision that occurred.”

“A couple seconds later, it was just a very loud boom, and everybody just jolted out of their seats, people hit their heads, people were bleeding,” Liquori recalled.

The fatal accident adds to airport disruptions in the U.S. linked to the ongoing partial government shutdown. Transportation Security Administration employees have been working without pay since the shutdown began on Feb. 14, prompting thousands to call out of work. Staffing shortages have plagued U.S. airports, leading to long lines and extended wait times.