On the 22nd of March 2026, a landing jet struck a fire truck that a controller had cleared onto the active runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York, the first fatal accident at LaGuardia in 34 years. Somewhat bizarrely, the previous accident, when USAir flight 405 crashed on take-off after ice buildup on the wings, occurred 34 years ago to the day, on the 22nd of March 1992.
There are still many questions; however, let’s look at the sequence of events as known so far.
Air Canada Express flight 8646, a CRJ-900LR registered in Canada as C-GNJZ, departs Montréal-Trudeau International Airport over two hours late for its scheduled flight to LaGuardia. There are four crew members (two flight crew, two cabin crew) and 72 passengers on board. As it approaches its destination, LaGuardia is struggling with a number of late flights and a lack of available gates. The weather is poor: heavy rain with limited visibility.
As the Air Canada flight is approaching, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operating as United Airlines flight 2384 (a scheduled flight from LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare airport), has just aborted their take-off run after their anti-ice warning lights came on. They have already rejected a take-off earlier this evening, seemingly for a related issue.
After the second aborted take-off, the cabin crew notices “a foul odour” in the cabin. The captain asks to return to the gate, but there is no gate available. The captain repeats that they have an unidentified odour and that they are in need of assistance from firefighters. The controller manages the escalating situation, calmly, arranging a fire response and instructing the flight crew to move to another taxiway, out of the way.
The Boeing 737-8 crew make a wrong turn, leading to a different taxiway. The controller takes it in stride, saying he’ll send the fire trucks to the aircraft’s new location. Meanwhile, cabin crew report to the captain that they are feeling ill as a result of the fumes. The captain declares an emergency, asking for any available gate.
The controller looks again for a free gate, with no success. The controller tells the captain that there still is nothing available but he’s sending a stair truck over with the fire trucks, so they can evacuate if needed.
About 90 seconds later, the same controller clears Air Canada Express flight 8646 to land on runway 4, as number two for landing, which means another aircraft will be landing first and the Air Canada Express flight is cleared to land after that aircraft vacates the runway.
The Air Canada Express flight will land in about two minutes. The flight crew lowers the gears and confirms the landing checklist is complete. There is no further communication between the pilots and the tower.
There are two controllers in the tower: the local controller and a controller-in-charge. Both have been on shift for about an hour. The controller-in-charge was handling clearances. There are reports that either the controller-in-charge or the local controller was also dealing with ground control (managing vehicle movements on taxiways); however, the NTSB have said this isn’t clear. Apparently the tower logs have inconsistent dates and times, so this isn’t as easy to confirm as it should be.
Truck 1, a 35-ton 28-tonne/31-ton aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle with two on board, is the lead vehicle of the convoy making its way to the Boeing 737-8. There’s a transmission to the tower at 23:36:22 by an airport vehicle, likely Truck 1 asking to cross the runway, but the transmission is blocked (stepped on) by another transmission. The controller clearly hears something as he then calls blind. “Is there a vehicle that needed to cross the runway?”
The controller would have been expecting the truck to call, and maybe could see the vehicles on the taxiway. Now again, it’s still unclear who was dealing with ground control that night, but this call is unrelated: Entering the active runway always requires clearance from the Tower controller.
But it’s also true that LaGuardia Airport is particularly complicated in this respect. There are two 7,002-foot runways, 4/22 and 13/31, which intersect as an X. Any vehicle or aircraft that is moving around the ramp areas and runway ends must cross an active runway. According to CBS news, who went over the data collected by the FAA and NASA, there are frequent issues, with 132 logged incursions in the past 25 years.
Truck 1 is stopped at the Delta taxiway. One of the occupants responds to the controller.”Truck 1 and company, LaGuardia Tower, requesting to cross [runway] 4 at Delta.”
The controller clears the truck. “Truck 1 and company, cross 4 at Delta.”
Air Canada Express flight 8646 is on short final, about 100 feet above the ground. The First Officer is the Pilot Flying.
Truck 1 reads back the clearance. The fire truck prepares to enter the runway. In the cockpit of flight 8646, the Ground Proximity Warning System sounds: Fifty feet.
The controller appears to notice that something is wrong and goes on frequency: “Sorry, Truck 1…” A second later, his voice has gone from calm to frantic as he realises what’s happening. “Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop Truck 1. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.”
The LiveATC recording is harrowing to listen to:
Air Canada Express flight 8646 touches down. The First Officer immediately transfers control to the Captain, presumably seeing the fire truck on the runway.
The controller is still calling. “Stop Truck 1. Stop. Stop Truck 1. Stop.”
Flightradar24 data shows the aircraft deviating to the right of the centre line just before the impact, suggesting an attempted evasive manoeuvre.
There is an alarm in the cockpit and then the Cockpit Voice Recorder stops recording.
The CRJ-900 was travelling at about 81-91 knots (150-168 km/h) when it crashed into the 35-ton fire truck. The aircraft nose was sheared off, with the cockpit and forward galley destroyed. Both pilots were killed on impact. The fire truck was destroyed, with wreckage strewn across the runway. Both firefighters survived with injuries. Onboard the aircraft, 41 were hospitalised, including a cabin crew member who was found still strapped to her seat 328 feet from the aircraft.
There were multiple systems that could, or should, have intervened.
First of all, Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X) is installed at LaGuardia to track ground movements and alert controllers to runway conflicts. It did not generate an alert.
None of the aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicles at LaGuardia have transponders, which would have allowed ASDE-X to track them clearly. Instead, the system sees only an ambiguous radar return, with multiple vehicles showing as indistinct blobs. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) notes that transponders are standard on fire trucks at other US airports. In fact, ten months before the crash, the FAA had recommended that all 35 ASDE-X airports equip ground vehicles with Vehicle Movement Area Transmitters, with federal funding available for up to 200 transmitters per airport. LaGuardia did not take part.
The NTSB believes that the ASDE-X failed to generate an alert because of the close proximity of the vehicles near the runway. When investigators replayed the data, they saw “two blobs of traffic” on the taxiway, but never saw one blob separating to move onto the active runway.
There are runway status lights which shine red when a runway is occupied. These appear to have been functioning at the time of the collision. It isn’t yet clear if the firefighters in the truck saw the red lights or if they heard the controller’s call to stop.
It’s standard practice to check for inbound aircraft before entering the runway. But at night, in the rain, it’s likely that the driver of the truck would not have been able to see the CRJ-900 on short final.
There’s also the point that the aircraft’s clearance to land was given two minutes before the truck was cleared to enter the runway. This is specifically a US phenomenon, where controllers give clearance at high density airports based on expected runway availability, such as in this case, number two to land, rather than because the runway is clear. I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but in Europe, the Air Canada flight would not have been given clearance to land until after the number one aircraft had landed and cleared the runway. In this case, that call could have reminded ATC of their position on short final. Instead, it seems very possible that the two-minute gap, combined with the complications of dealing with the Boeing 737 MAX 8 emergency, caused the controller to lose situational awareness.
The Aviation Law Group point out that there have been several serious runway and surface conflicts in the US in recent years, underscoring an ongoing concern within an air traffic system that is operating under increasing pressure.
The issue is not simply whether the system works most of the time. The question is whether the margins for error at busy airports have become too thin as traffic volume, controller workload, surface movements, and timing pressures continue to converge. LaGuardia, with its density, physical limitations, and operational complexity, is precisely the type of environment where those margins matter most.
Normally, if an accident occurs, the air traffic controller involved is removed from active duty as quickly as possible, as it is a highly stressful environment. However, the same controller can be heard continuing to direct traffic after the event, the distress still clear in his voice. This underscores ATC staffing issues at LaGuardia and across the US. A study last year reported that staffing levels have been declining for 15 years. Nearly a third of FAA facilities are over 10% below their adequate staffing levels.
The Air Traffic Controller Workforce Imperative:
Between FYs 2013 and 2023, FAA experienced a series of constraints on hiring that were mostly externally imposed, including two government shutdowns and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. These constraints led to hiring levels that did not keep pace with attrition, leading to reduced staffing at many facilities, including several facilities that serve the country’s busiest airports and have an outsized effect on flight delays across the national airspace. Overall, FAA’s controller workforce declined by almost 2,000 FTEs (–13%) between 2010 and 2024. Nineteen of the largest ATC facilities have controller staffing levels that are more than 15% below the staffing targets determined by FAA staffing models. While representing only 6% of facilities, these large, understaffed facilities serve about 27% of the country’s commercial operations and account for about 40% of system delays.
As of this time last year, FAA listings of ATC staffing show that the New York TRACON (N90) ,which controls approach and departure for all three major NYC airports, is staffed at roughly 55% of the target for adequate staffing. Compared to many, LaGuardia Tower is much better staffed, with 32 of their target for 34 controllers.
However, it was the midnight shift, with only the local controller and the controller-in-charge handling tower duties and possibly ground duties, which caused an issue when the airport remained more active than usual because of multiple flight delays.
In a media briefing, the NTSB chair conceded that two controllers working combined positions during the midnight shift is standard operating procedure nationally but questioned whether this makes sense at LaGuardia, which handles approximately 900 flights daily through its intersecting-runway configuration.
This video released by the NTSB shows the wreckage and runway as the NTSB began their investigation. The footage is disturbing and doesn’t need to be viewed to understand the accident, but I’m including it as it does give context for the airport and area.
The NTSB investigation (DCA26MA161) has already deployed 25 investigators. The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada, the airline, the port authority, the FAA and the aircraft manufacturer are all participating.
The NTSB’s preliminary report is expected around the 21st of April. The probable cause determination will likely take 12 to 18 months. In the meantime, Runway 4 reopened on 28 March.
Eighteen minutes after the collision, the controller was still on frequency. A pilot said: “That wasn’t good to watch.” The controller replied: “Yeah, I know. We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.” The pilot responded: “Nah, man, you did the best you could.” This quote is being used as proof that the controller is to blame. I see it as proof that the controller shouldn’t have still been on frequency.
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