Thankyou for illuminating facts.
A big deal is being made about semantics used in the headline as to whether it was a crash from air to ground or exclusively a ground crash. Who cares? It was a fatal crash either way.
The same driver of the fire and rescue truck presumably looks both ways before crossing a street intersection when in his personal vehicle but not at an airport? All runways must be assumed to be active. Trust nothing but your eyes and ears to ensure no conflict regardless of what ATC says. An unresolved conflict can be “discussed” with the tower controller or truck-mates later. Otherwise, give it the gun and get the hell off any runway and stay off until absolutely cleared after readback of clearance without objection or correction ((basic training). Yes, it was near midnight and probably a slow traffic time, but no excuse.
A terrible accident but like so many it was preventable. In the heat of the moment and handling a declared emergency it seems the controller cleared the fire truck to cross the runway the CRJ was landing on. From the video it looks like the fire truck was crossing at a 45 degree angle from a high speed turnoff. This is the worse possible place to cross an active runway as it creates unnecessary blind spots for the driver.
Two pilot flight crews deal with blind spots with a verbal call out of “clear left” or “clear right” is this procedure trained for airport vehicle drivers? if not it should be mandatory.
Since the introduction of ADS-B aircraft on the ground and in the air are visible on a I-Pad and this technology would have clearly shown and WARNED the truck driver that a aircraft was landing on the runway that he had been cleared to cross, this would be a extremely cheap backup technology to the often overloaded and task saturated controllers at airports like LaGuardia
I recently read that over 90% of our ATC facilities are short staffed and just like the midair in DC this was probably a contributing factor. I won’t get into the political details here but the controller shortage is and was caused by political decisions.
We deserve better from our government, let’s demand it now.
Always seemed cons and pros to me as neither controller nor pilot - one person doing both is fully aware of conflicts. (Unless overworked.)