A plane collided with a fire engine at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Sunday evening (22). The pilot and co-pilot of the plane died in the accident.
The plane was operated by Jazz Aviation, an Air Canada partner, and had 72 passengers and four crew members on board. It arrived from Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Canada.
A recording of communications from the control tower, released by the monitoring website Live ATC and broadcast by CNN, revealed that the fire truck was trying to cross the runway.
The vehicle was cleared to move, but the air traffic controller tried to stop it several times. The operator can be heard yelling, “Stop, Car 1, stop, stop, stop!” and then requests the aircraft to abort the landing.
“Jazz 646, I see you’ve collided with a vehicle, stay put. I know you can’t move. Rescue teams are on their way,” he continued.
One of the pilots asked if the runway was closed, and the controller again instructed to abort the landing, while another pilot, whose plane was on the ground, said “it wasn’t nice to see”.
“Yes, I know, I was here. I tried to contact them. I told them to stop and we were dealing with another emergency earlier and I made a mistake,” the dispatcher regretted.
Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said both pilots were confirmed dead and that 41 passengers and crew were taken to hospital, 32 of whom had already been released.
The US is facing a shortage of employees at airports. On Sunday (22), Donald Trump said ICE agents would assist TSA employees starting Monday (23).
Trump made a similar threat on Saturday (21) if Democratic senators do not approve the budget for the Department of Homeland Security, amid a row in the Senate over changes to the operation of ICE.
Air Canada CRJ-900 has collided with a fire truck while landing at La Guardia Airport.
The plane, a Jazz Aviation flight operating on behalf of Air Canada, struck a Port Authority vehicle that was responding a separate incident around 11:40 p.m., according to the Port Authority… pic.twitter.com/6fiEDMTMIj
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) March 23, 2026
Source and images: Wikimedia Commons. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
