Originally published at: Air Canada Collision at LaGuardia Kills Two Pilots
Crash shuts down major New York airport, injures dozens and disrupts hundreds of flights.
This is misreported as a crash, but it was a collision on the ground. In aviation we generally don’t report collisions on the ground as “crashes” because “crash” evokes the idea of an airplane slamming into the ground from altitude. This was an AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL issue, again… and seems to have happened on the ground, not really a crash.
Tragic for all involved. It sounds like the controller admitted blame immediately over the air, but I would think that some responsibility rests with the truck crew. Wouldn’t you at least slow and look before entering an active runway (trust but verify)? In general the truck crew is more vulnerable in these types of collisions than the aircraft just by virtue of Newtons 2nd Law of Motion. Getting T-boned by a larger faster vehicle doesn’t end well as we saw in the Jan 2024 JAL collision with the Coast Guard DHC-8.
I concur with Bob1’s observation. A “crash” fails to communicate the monumental failure of the tower’s ground controller and approach control failures to communicate.
Can an ATCer advise why LGA delegates runway crossings to ground (obviously with coordination) instead of owning all runway surfaces and communicating directly like at LAX. I assume they are making some bottleneck vs safety choice but I don’t see any obvious reason that would justify the situational awareness gap that opened up here to this tragedy.
I believe it was the same controller talking to both the CFR vehicles and the aircraft. It’s not uncommon for one controller to be working both ground and tower positions later in the evenings when traffic is usually slower.
‘Firetruck on Runway Kills two Pilots, dozens injured’
Landing Jet slams into Firetruck on Runway’
‘Firetruck Drives into path of landing Air Canada jet’
'Firetruck crosses runway in path of landing jet ’
Avweb as a supposed trade publication with knowledgeable people should do better with your headlines.
I expect this headline on CNN or FOX , not here.
What?!? The headline I’m seeing is “Air Canada Collision at LaGuardia Kills Two Pilots
Crash shuts down major New York airport, injures dozens and disrupts hundreds of flights.”
Good point. I guess then the issue could be more saturation than locus of authority.
I departed SFO late one night…took forever to get IFR clearance from the one guy working all three positions…crazy I thought, but obviously works.
It was the “landing phase of flight”. For all we know the crew could have been attempting a last second go around. It certainly ended up in an unusual position, indicating it was still carrying a lot of speed. By your definition was the worst accident in aviation history, Tenerife, a “ground collision “. I don’t like the press, but in this case using the term crash might help, once again, to draw the public’s attention to the sorry state of our ATC system and how much it needs to be improved. It’s much more important to determine why this keeps happening rather than to nitpick about how to describe it to the general public.
Can’t disagree Cpt. I took a few minutes to see what we can figure out until we can get the real NTSB data using basic physics, and the Vref speeds and liveatc already reported elsewhere.
- Jazz CRJ900 CTL RW 4 at 05:00 min on liveatc archive
- ARFF Truck 1 Cleared to cross RW 4 at Delta heading back to fire station from earlier incident in the gates liveatc time stamp 07:18 ± 15 sec.
- Collision between 60,000 lb steel water filled fire fighting truck (ARFF) and a ~48,000 airplane on landing rollout, stopping about 550 ft down field, nose high with debris trailing from nose, and enough stuff stripped off the front of the airframe to possibly shift the CG aft setting it on its tail and the mains (guess on my part) and rolled the firetruck onto its side. (commercial media pictures & vids)
- The airplane needs 5800 ft landing distance at SL/ISA and the distance from the TZ to Delta intersection was at best 2100 ft, landing speed ~ 140 kts wind calm (guess on my part based on Vref published).
TDZ to Stop is about 2000 ft and an estimated over the fence speed of 140 kts,
Gathering this information from the CRJ-900 specs, and op limits took maybe 15 minutes, including the physics. We don’t know the landing weight, and actual touch down speeds or touch down zone point, and I certainly don’t know CRJ-9.
But you’re right. A publication targeted at aviation audiences could give us just a little more perspective, than say NBC or reddit.
ADSB for all ground vehicles should prevent future crashes like this.
MarsStation has the best solution: Why didn’t the truck driver look both ways before starting to cross the runway? Driving a car, I don’t trust traffic lights to prevent crossing cars from running the light. Way back 56+ years ago I was a ground controller who absently-minded cleared a friend taxiing in a Navajo to cross the runway, and he replied “I’ll wait for the traffic on short final.” His caution prevented a catastrophe from pure carelessness on my part. I also concur with the idea of requiring taxiing pilots to call on the tower local controller frequency to confirm clearance to cross a runway - wasn’t this maybe once the required practice, at least for a short time?
Physics? What physics? I don’t see any useful purpose for the couple of guesses and couple of time references you provided. Frankly, I prefer a publication targeted at aviation to remain thus targeted and leave the speculation to the websites that excel at drivel.
“Crash” is an informal term that really has no specific meaning in the aviation community. This event will be classified as an Aircraft Accident. An accident is the most serious type of event, and it is given the same classification whether it occurs on the ground or in the air. In fact, an accident can occur anytime between the time a person “boards the aircraft with the intention of flight” and the time that the last person disembarks (gate to gate). If no person is killed or seriously injured, and the damage is not “substantial,” the event would be classified as an Aircraft Incident rather than an accident.
This particular event will also be considered a Runway Incursion, and will receive extra scrutiny because the FAA and NTSB take incursions in particular very seriously. Runway incursions have been a major focal point of air traffic control training and equipment upgrades for a long time.
It’s possible that the firetruck driver didn’t see the aircraft landing so I’ll reserve judgement until the NTSB findings are released. I usually land my Maule in the grass beside a hard surface runway to save wear on my expensive bushwheels. Before I cross the hard surface runway, I stop the airplane and look both ways for landing or departing traffic. It’s hard to believe that the firetruck driver wouldn’t do the same regardless of an ATC clearance. It’s the same as crossing the street with a walk signal. You look both ways in case someone is running the red light so you don’t get killed.
Well, if analyzing statistics perhaps but try to tell survivors…
Seems to be ATC error but I’d want complete radio recordings and interviews with surviving fire fighters.
Amazing luck for the forward F/A - she was thrown 330 feet and only suffered a broken leg. While flight deck in front of her was destroyed. (Appears as though the nose over-rode the truck as it tipped over, nose mangled.)
Agree.
Haste is possible for truck driver and controller, possibly concerned about fire on another airplane.
Been there, done that too. By your post (and this horrible accident) it clearly doesn’t “work”. Somewhere in the middle - some more staff, but perhaps not full day ops - is the answer. I know up here in Canada there is “abuse” of the system by staff - guys booking off so others get overtime.