LaGuardia Airport (LGA) closed for post-crash investigations after an Air Canada passenger plane collided with a fire truck on the tarmac of the airport in the last minutes of March 22.
The fatal crash took the lives of the pilot and first officer operating the flight and resulted in dozens of injuries of varying degrees of severity to the other 41 passengers and crew aboard the Bombardier CRJ-900 plane.
The flight originated at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport (YUL) and had been given clearance to land at the airport’s Runway 4. According to ATC communications that emerged immediately after the crash, the air traffic controller gave clearance also gave the fire truck permission to cross the same runway at approximately 11:37 p.m.
“Stop, stop, stop”: Collision between Air Canada plane and fire truck closes down LaGuardia Airport
The controller is heard yelling “stop, stop, stop” at the truck before the impact and “I tried to reach out to my staff, and we were dealing with an emergency earlier; I messed up” right after.
Twenty flights headed to LaGuardia were diverted to nearby airports or their original destination, while over 200 flights for Monday morning and early afternoon on March 23 were canceled. LaGuardia remains closed as Canadian investigators join the joint probe from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
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At a press conference held on the morning of March 23, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said the earliest time LaGuardia would start running flights again was 2 p.m.
The FAA announced that one runway would reopen to limited service by the afternoon. The first took off at 2:08 p.m. EST, but travelers are still encouraged to check the status of their specific flight before departing for the airport, due to the slow restart pace and large number of cancellations.
Air Canada
“Always at the deference to the control tower”: press conference on fatal crash
In explaining the immediate details of the collision, Garcia told reporters that “the vehicle was responding to another aircraft operated by United Airlines that had reported an issue with odor.”
Anyone driving through the runway area is “always is in deference to the control tower,” she added.
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Operations at Newark Airport (EWR) were also placed under a brief ground stop on the morning of March 23, NewsNation reported, following the evacuation of an air traffic control tower over the presence of smoke. As a result, flights into the New York City area have faced significant disruption.
Some passengers who arrived to LaGuardia just after its closure on the night of March 22 reported spending the night at the airport or driving to nearby cities like Philadelphia after not being able to fly out.
“Everybody just jolted out of their seats,” flight passenger Rebecca Liquori spoke of her experience on the crashed flight to the Associated Press. “People hit their heads. People were bleeding.”
Air Canada President Michael Rousseau called the collision “a very somber day at Air Canada” as tributes for the killed pilots from colleagues, fellow union members, and the flying public continue to pour in throughout the day.
Related: Another airline shuts down after losing license, flights canceled
