Originally published at: NTSB: LaGuardia Surface Alert System Did Not Trigger
Investigators said the fire truck involved did not have a transponder, and a stepped-on radio transmission remains under review.
The TRUCK ONE driver logically thought the initial part of the urgent “stop stop” command was a continuation of an instruction for the FRONTIER taxiing and by the time he realized it was for him and the controller added his ID it was too late.. Out of 1000+ theories I haven’t heard that one yet.
What an fffnnnn failure.
After this news, how many of the 20,000. local fire chiefs will purchase Xpndrs for their ARFF trucks ?
Dear fire chief, don’t waste my tax dollars. In fly-over country, radar won’t see a transponder below 4000’ AGL But if you need to; use-it or loose-it, get mode “C” as well as ADSB-in and out. That way, we can see the trucks altitude. There should be a DOGE law. Stop landing traffic during an emergency. This will be a windfall for the avionics/electronics industry. Just imagine how many snow plows, police cars, tugs, ARFF.. Lets say 50 vehicles per airport at the 520 airports that could use transponders or around $100,000,000. time to buy some stock in Appareo, Avidyne, Becker, Bendix/King, Dynon, Garmin, Sandia, and Trig Avionics.
The blurry video appears to show the fire truck turning left on the runway rather than going straight across to taxiway D. Did the fire truck driver see the jet and attempt to get out of its way?
When I was a CRJ pilot, we looked both ways before crossing an intersection, especially a runway. Any pilot does. I’m guessing it’s SOP for fire trucks too. Shouldn’t have happened.
I assume you have a pilot’s licence, I also assume you don’t go to commercial airports. You don’t seem to grasp the number of incidents the fire fighters/emergency services respond to every day - safely. Your idea of closing the airport would not only create massive rippling delays throughout the network but also costly disruptive diversions.
I notice NTSB repeatedly states truck 1 didn’t have a transponder. They never expand the comment - did NONE of the other vehicles with “1” have a transponder? No one smart enough to think about putting a transponder equipped vehicle in the lead - to avoid an accident!
Another issue - was the ground controller’s call blocked by the fire fighters’ own FM radios?
I have been retired from ATC for a few years, but never knew vehicles on the airport to have a transponder. Is that something that other airport vehicles at LGA (and elsewhere) have now?
The gaggle of fire trucks seen on the video, if all had transponders, would create an unusable clutter of overlapping Data Blocks if they were all equipped, and turned on.