The collision between the plane and a fire engine took place at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Sunday evening (22). The pilot and co-pilot died in the accident.
The plane was operated by Jazz Aviation, a partner of Air Canada, and had 72 passengers and four crew members on board. It came from Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Canada.
An audio recording from the control tower, published by the monitoring site Live ATC and broadcast by CNN, revealed that the fire truck was trying to cross the runway.
The vehicle was cleared to proceed, but the air traffic controller tried several times to get it to stop. The operator can be heard shouting: “Stop, Vehicle 1, stop, stop, stop!” and then ask the aircraft to abort the landing.
“Jazz 646, I see you’ve collided with a vehicle here, stay put. I know you can’t move. Rescue teams are on their way to you now,” he continued.
One pilot asked if the runway was closed and the air traffic controller repeated the order to abort the landing, while another pilot, whose plane was on the ground, said: “it was not nice to see”.
“Yes, I know, I was here. I tried to contact them. I told them to stop and we dealt with an emergency earlier and I made a mistake,” the air traffic controller lamented.
Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said both pilots were confirmed dead and 41 passengers and crew members were taken to hospital, 32 of whom have already been discharged.
The United States is experiencing a shortage of personnel at airports. On Sunday (22), Donald Trump said ICE agents will assist TSA officers starting Monday (23).
Trump made a similar threat Saturday (21) if Democratic senators do not approve the budget for the Department of Homeland Security amid a deadlock in the Senate over changes to ICE’s work.
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
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Source and images: Wikimedia Commons. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editors.
