Two pilots are dead, dozens of people are injured and New York’s LaGuardia airport closed for hours after an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck on a runway at the busy airport the evening of March 22, officials said.
An Air Canada Express plane carrying 72 passengers and four crew members collided with the emergency vehicle shortly before midnight, Kathryn Garcia, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference.
The Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle was responding to another aircraft operated by United Airlines, which had reported an odor issue and aborted its scheduled takeoff, officials said.
“It was an aviation disaster the likes of which we have not seen here in over three decades,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “But it’s a deeply human story where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families and they will not, and this is what pains everyone.”
Air traffic controllers tried to stop the truck and passenger jet from colliding, according to recorded audio from before and after the crash.
“Stop, stop, stop,” a controller is heard saying. “Truck one, stop, truck one, stop.” Garcia said 41 passengers and crew were transported to the hospital. Thirty-two of them have been released, while others have “serious injuries.” Photos of the wreck show damage to the nose of the plane, which was tilted upward.
Among the injured were the two officers aboard the fire truck. Both were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. One is expected to be released Monday afternoon while the other will stay at the hospital overnight for observation, according to Garcia.
The New York airport had reopened at a limited capacity as of the afternoon of March 23, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference with other top officials.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash. According to Duffy, the Federal Aviation Administration will send a team to support the NTSB.
Canadian government investigators are going to New York to participate in the inquiry, Duffy said. USA TODAY has reached out to Canadian officials for comment.
What do we know about the pilots?
State and federal officials lamented the deaths of the two pilots involved, saying they were “at the start of their careers.”
“These were two young men at the start of their careers so it’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said at the Monday news conference.
The FAA chief said the crash happened after the Port Authority emergency responders were called to a United flight that aborted its scheduled takeoff.
Bedford noted conditions were “mist and fog” on the runway at the time of the crash. He did not elaborate on why the United flight did not take off as scheduled.
‘Stop, stop, stop’ Air traffic controllers can be heard on recorded audio attempting to keep the plane and fire truck from colliding. According to the audio, an air traffic controller cleared a fire truck to cross Runway 4 at taxiway ‘Delta,’ where the collision occurred. Shortly after, an air traffic controller repeatedly tried to stop the vehicle, saying “Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, truck one, stop.” Following the collision, an air traffic controller can be heard saying LaGuardia Airport is going to be closed and relayed the information to an apparent other flight, Frontier 4195, which was slated to depart for Miami at 10:55 p.m., according to Flightradar24. That flight responded to air traffic control in the recording, saying “That wasn’t good to watch.” “I tried to reach out to my staff, and we were dealing with an emergency earlier,” the air traffic controller said in response. “I messed up.”
More than 540 flights canceled at LaGuardia
Nearly 600 flights departing from or arriving at LaGuardia have been canceled so far at the time of publication, according to a USA TODAY analysis of flight data from Flightradar24. That includes 288 flights to LaGuardia and 296 from the airport.
In addition, 22 incoming flights were diverted from LaGuardia from overnight and most of them were diverted to John F. Kennedy International Airport.https://e.infogram.com/_/RfVld7lr3hk1Fj8H5MC0?src=embed#async_embed
New York City’s emergency notification system said people could expect cancellations, road closures, traffic delays and emergency personnel near the airport. Entrances and exits to and from LaGuardia in Queens have since reopened, but emergency officials warned travelers to “expect residual delays.”
The closure of one of New York’s busiest airports came amid travel disruptions caused by the partial government shutdown. Absences among Transportation Security Administration workers reached their highest level over the weekend since the partial shutdown began five weeks ago, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Collision is one of many recent aviation incidents According to the FAA, there were 97 runway incursions in January this year, compared to 133 incidents during the same period last year. The crash at LaGuardia comes after a yearlong investigation into the January 2025 collision over the Potomac River between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people. In November, a UPS cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Louisville, Kentucky, killing 15 people, including all three crew members on board the plane and 12 people on the ground.
