On Sunday, March 22, an&nbsp;Air Canada&nbsp;plane crashed&nbsp;into a Port Authority fire truck on a LaGuardia Airport runway, killing the two pilots and injuring dozens.&nbsp;Stay up to date with Newsday&#39;s coverage.&nbsp;

Long Island

Transportation

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Newsday Staff

The deadly collision between an Air Canada flight and a Port Authority fire truck is bringing new scrutiny to&nbsp;the unique challenges posed by LaGuardia Airport’s busy airspace and relatively short runways, nearly surrounded by water. 
While federal data shows these kinds of crashes are rare, aviation industry experts say the layout and density of the nearly century-old Queens facility leaves both pilots and air traffic controllers little room for error. 
In fact, pilots&nbsp;have complained for years about navigating the airport’s dark and winding taxiways and confusing signage,&nbsp;according to a Newsday review of public aviation safety records. 
"The controller emphasized that this happens a lot," one pilot wrote in a 2023 report, after mistakenly turning onto the wrong taxiway. 
Billy Metallinos, an assistant professor at the CUNY Aviation Center at York College, described LaGuardia as "a high-density, space-constrained airport" with "continuous aircraft and vehicle movement." 
"This creates a complex operating environment where precise timing and communication are essential," he told Newsday. 
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said their preliminary review of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/laguardia-air-canada-crash-h41630">Sunday’s incident,</a>&nbsp;which killed two pilots and injured dozens more, found the firetruck&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/transportation/lga-long-lines-security-p47esnhf">did not have a transponder and the surveillance system</a> used to warn air traffic controllers of potential danger couldn’t accurately track the location of the vehicle. 
Two air traffic controllers were performing the responsibilities of multiple people at the time, although that is standard practice, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said earlier this week. 
"We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure," Homendy said at a news conference. "Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident." 
<h3>'Nearly impossible to see'</h3> 
Newsday's review of NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows pilots and other airport personnel anonymity to flag potential issues, show recurring concerns at LaGuardia. 
In 2021, a pilot referred to the taxiways&nbsp;as a "conglomeration that looks more like spaghetti," according to one of the reports. 
Last summer, a pilot implored government officials to "please do something," saying LaGuardia air traffic controllers are "pushing the line" and causing unsafe conditions on the runways and taxiways. 
The reports in the federal database, which include all airports nationwide, represent a fraction of the planes that successfully pass through LaGuardia daily. LaGuardia and Kennedy airports are among the nation’s busiest, and the volume of passengers at both are at near-record highs, according to the Port Authority, which oversees the facilities. 
But Sunday’s crash happened at night, when it was rainy. Multiple pilots have complained about maneuvering in such conditions&nbsp;at LaGuardia. 
"Unlit no-taxi area nearly impossible to see — even worse if wet/rain," a 2024&nbsp;pilot complaint said. 
A Port Authority spokesperson told Newsday in an email the agency was unable to comment on specifics of Sunday's incident given the ongoing federal investigation.&nbsp; 
None of the 49 complaints filed for LaGuardia in the last five years reference issues with first responders on the taxiway, although several cite traffic issues and confusing air traffic controller instructions. 
Metallinos said these kinds of collisions can occur when there’s a lot of different things going on. 
"Breakdowns most often occur at the intersection of communication, timing and situational awareness, misunderstood or incorrectly read-back instructions," he said. "There’s a lot going on in the cockpit or in the air traffic control towers." 
The Federal Aviation Administration has flagged two "hot spots" at LaGuardia’s tarmac, areas on an airfield where collisions or runway incursions have taken place or are more likely to, including an intersection between a runway and taxiway, according to documents. 
Sunday’s crash did not occur within the flagged locations.&nbsp;The FAA did not respond to a&nbsp;request for comment. 
<h3>Rare incident</h3> 
Also rare at LaGuardia are any runway incursions,&nbsp;when an unauthorized aircraft, vehicle or person enters a runway that could lead to a collision. 
In 2025, there were six reported runway incursions at LaGuardia, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. Incursions have varying levels of severity, though, and the vast majority of those reported at LaGuardia since 2002 have been at the lowest levels. 
Roughly 350,000 flights come in and out of LaGuardia annually, according to the Port Authority. 
Nationally, the runway incursion rate has been trending down in recent years, according to statistics from the FAA. 
In 2025, 1,661 runway incursions were reported across the country, according to the FAA. The vast majority of those incidents reported had no immediate safety consequences or there was ample time to avoid a collision. 
Alan Diehl, a former NTSB investigator, told Newsday most runway incursions are "very minor," such as a baggage cart getting on the taxiway. 
"These kinds of dramatic accidents are very rare," Diehl said. 
Sunday’s crash has led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and is heightening travelers’ anxieties, which have recently been frayed even further by hourslong security lines caused by staffing shortages from a partial government shutdown. 
It comes about a year after&nbsp;the January 2025&nbsp;midair collision between a Black Hawk military helicopter and regional jet above the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, an incident that killed 67 people aboard both aircraft. 
Still, air travel is "so dramatically safe, that's what gets lost in all this," Randy Babbitt, a pilot and former administrator of the FAA, said in an interview. 
"At any given moment, you look up over your head, there's somewhere between 7,000-7,500 airplanes in the sky over the United States every hour. And there's thousands of landings going on," Babbitt said. 
But pilots at LaGuardia continue to file the anonymous reports to the federal database, in hopes of flagging problems before they lead to tragedy. 
"I had to stop immediately and aggressively," a pilot wrote in 2023, describing a near miss with another plane before takeoff.&nbsp;"I don't believe Aircraft Y even saw me and they were taxiing way [too] fast in my opinion."

Investigations

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LaGuardia conditions drew pilot complaints for years before fatal Air Canada crash

'Please do something': Conditions at LaGuardia prompted pilot complaints for years

AIAudio - LaGuardia conditions drew pilot complaints for years before fatal Air Canada crash


AIAudio - LaGuardia conditions drew pilot complaints for years before fatal Air Canada crash

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Nicholas Spangler

In the hours before workers removed a crashed Air Canada jet from LaGuardia Airport's runway Wednesday evening,&nbsp;the security check-in line inside was a giant, sluggish snake, slowed not by the weekend&nbsp;accident but a slower-motion crisis at the federal agency responsible for security screening.&nbsp; 
Port Authority officials did not respond to a question about how the removal, shortly after 5 p.m., of the jet and the fire vehicle it had crashed into&nbsp;might affect&nbsp;airport operations, which had been impacted by the presence of debris and investigators on the tarmac. 
The plane's two pilots were killed in the Sunday night crash. A&nbsp;spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the cause&nbsp;of the crash, said in an email that "investigative activity on the runway is ongoing" and the plane was being taken to an undisclosed facility for further examination.&nbsp; 
For much of the day, the scene inside LaGuardia's Terminal B was one of travel purgatory. A&nbsp;main line stretched across the terminal's eastern half in four coils, while a&nbsp;separate precheck line ran the length of the terminal's western half. It made&nbsp;six switchbacks&nbsp;in the cavernous indoor space next to the terminal parking garage. 
A reporter heard airport officials estimating&nbsp;the precheck wait time at an hour, two to two-and-a-half hours for everyone else. Babies wailed. People in line took cellphone pictures of the expansive queue. 
"This is crazy. This is the longest line I've ever seen," said Riliegh Flowers, 20, a certified nursing assistant trying to get home to Davenport, Florida, on a 7 p.m. flight. It was shortly before 3 p.m., but an airport official had just warned her and her companion: "You want to be on the other side of this."&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
At 11 a.m., Pratik Wanare, 32, an information systems manager, stood near&nbsp;the line’s end and said he was trying to return home to Canada with his wife and their &nbsp;1-year-old son. 
"I'm anxious," he said. "I don’t know if I will make it to my flight," which was due to leave shortly after 1 p.m. 
As Wanare stood on line, Ha Nguyen McNeill, the&nbsp;Transportation Security Administration's acting administrator, told a U.S. House committee that in some of the nation's airports&nbsp;as many as 40% of TSA workers were not showing up for work. They have not been paid since the mid-February shutdown of Homeland Security, TSA's parent department.&nbsp;About 480 TSA workers have quit, some are selling their blood to make money, and those who continue to work have been subject to a fivefold increase in assaults since the start of the shutdown, she said. 
If the shutdown continues, McNeill said, some airports may need to close, and even if the shutdown ends, it will take four to six months to train new hires. There were significant concerns, she said, about "our security posture and what the long-term impacts&nbsp;of the shutdown" will be on the TSA workforce.&nbsp; 
Rep. Andrew Garbarino&nbsp;(R-Bayport), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, also speaking at the hearing, said shutdown disruptions, paired with an expected surge of international visitors for this summer's soccer World Cup, presented "a dire situation." 
By evening, a deal between Republican lawmakers and Democrats to fund Homeland Security did not appear imminent. Senate Democrats have refused to fund the department without changes to immigration enforcement procedures. President Donald Trump has so far declined to support any prospective deal. 
LaGuardia's website no longer reports security wait times for any of its terminals, citing "rapid change based on passenger volumes and TSA staffing," but not all travelers were dissatisfied. 
Trey Sprouse, 30, an insurance inspector from upstate Pawling bound for South Carolina, was less anxious than Wanare, perhaps because he and his wife had arrived at 9:30 a.m. for a 2:40 p.m. flight. 
"The line is extremely long but it moved quicker than I anticipated," he said. "They brought us snacks": Chex Mix, fruit snacks and water, he said. Sprouse said the wait would have to get considerably worse before he’d be dissuaded from flying. "It still saves time over a 10-hour drive." 
As passengers waited, at least 20 armed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement&nbsp;officers in tactical gear roamed the terminal, sent by Trump to airports across the country as TSA agents continued to call out sick. 
Earlier, on the runway outside, several people wearing FBI Evidence Response Team jackets joined&nbsp;members of the NTSB, which is leading the investigation. 
In a midday email, an NTSB spokesperson declined to say how long the investigation would take. 
"The schedule for various aspects of the investigation is very fluid and timeline is not set in stone," the spokesperson wrote. 
"NTSB investigators along with other agencies including the FBI are continuing to collect evidence from the debris field. It is typical that the FBI lends it resources to the NTSB to assist with evidence collection. This will probably continue for the next few days," the spokesperson wrote. 
By 6 p.m. Wednesday, flights into LaGuardia were delayed at their origin by an average of more than four hours, with 267 flight delays and 338 cancellations, according to flight tracker FlightAware. The airport led the service’s "Misery Map" with 62% of inbound flights canceled or delayed and 49% of outbound flights canceled or delayed. 
The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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LaGuardia security lines get longer as shutdown drags on; investigators remove wreckage of Air Canada jet, truck from runway

At LaGuardia, the waits remain long, but the Air Canada wreckage is removed

AIAudio - LaGuardia security lines get longer as shutdown drags on; investigators remove wreckage of Air Canada jet, truck from runway


AIAudio - LaGuardia security lines get longer as shutdown drags on; investigators remove wreckage of Air Canada jet, truck from runway

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Maintenance crews moved&nbsp;the wreckage of an Air Canada Express jet from the runway where it collided with a Port Authority fire truck Sunday night at&nbsp;LaGuardia&nbsp;Airport.

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Crews remove plane from runway at LaGuardia

long island

Newsday

A ground surveillance system did not&nbsp;alert air traffic control&nbsp;during Sunday's fatal crash at LaGuardia Airport as <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-air-canada-plane-crash-vek328rr" target="_blank">a landing jetliner was about to collide with&nbsp;a fire truck</a>&nbsp;crossing the runway, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxDklYVkioU" target="_blank">said</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxDklYVkioU"> Tuesday</a>. 
The system, which <a href="https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x">uses radar, satellites and transponders</a>&nbsp;to warn air traffic controllers of potential danger on the runway, couldn't precisely track the fire truck among other vehicles in the vicinity of the runway because it lacked&nbsp;a transponder, chairwoman&nbsp;Jennifer Homendy said. She said ground vehicles should be equipped with the devices to allow for monitoring, although the NTSB hasn't made that&nbsp;a formal recommendation.&nbsp; 
"Air traffic controllers should know what's before them, whether it's on the airport surface or in the airspace," she said, adding incredulously: "This is 2026." 
The NTSB, which investigates all major civil transportation accidents in the United States, delivered its preliminary findings about 39&nbsp;hours after the crash of a&nbsp;Port Authority fire truck and an Air Canada regional jet with 72 passengers and four crew. Both pilots were killed in the crash. The Associated Press reported Tuesday they were identified as&nbsp;Mackenzie Gunther and Antoine Forest, both Canadian, according to family members and a Canadian college. 
Homendy said it was unclear whether the driver of&nbsp;the truck heard the air traffic controller's repeated pleas over the radio to "stop" driving&nbsp;on the runway in the moments before the crash. She said the investigation is also focusing on staffing in the control tower overnight, when manpower tends to be lower than during the daytime. 
&nbsp;The radar system used at LaGuardia, and several dozen other airports, is&nbsp;called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, or ASDE-X,&nbsp;Homendy said Tuesday at a news conference at the airport. It is a&nbsp;surveillance system air traffic controllers use to track the surface movement of aircraft and vehicles.&nbsp; 
. <a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy during a news conference about Sunday's crash at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
" data-attr-credit="Newsday" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/73d2b657-0f4d-4573-9052-7fe1f130e042" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/73d2b657-0f4d-4573-9052-7fe1f130e042', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/73d2b657-0f4d-4573-9052-7fe1f130e042"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/73d2b657-0f4d-4573-9052-7fe1f130e042/nyLGA260325.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3">National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy during a news conference about Sunday's crash at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday afternoon. </a> 
In an unsigned response Tuesday to a Newsday inquiry, the&nbsp;Port Authority, which runs LaGuardia, declined to say why the fire truck lacked a transponder, or provide the number of ground vehicles with transponders at its airports. 
William Waldock, a professor of aircraft accident investigation and crash management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Arizona campus, told Newsday the system is "a combination of surface surveillance radar and a whole bunch of different sensors located around the airport that detect movement, plus it also uses ... sensors on the airplanes themselves." 
"Essentially what it does is integrate all of that with satellite sourcing so the [air traffic] controllers can actually see on a radar screen everything that's moving on airport surfaces — ground vehicles and aircraft," said Waldock, who helped in the investigation of a 1992 crash at LaGuardia. 
<h3>Two people in tower</h3> 
Homendy said two people were in the air traffic control tower at the time of the crash: a controller-in-charge, who is responsible for all safety of operations, and a local controller, who is in charge of takeoffs and landings. 
But she said&nbsp;it was unclear which person was the ground controller, meaning the air traffic controller responsible for taxiing aircraft and vehicles like the fire truck. During busy periods, ground control is usually handled by a separate person, but sometimes at night those duties are combined with other responsibilities. 
"We do have logs, but there's also conflicting information, including dates and times on the logs, so now we have to go through that and rectify some of those inconsistencies," Homendy said. 
Harvey Scolnick, who spent about 40 years as an air traffic controller at Kennedy Airport and elsewhere, told Newsday that when positions were combined, it&nbsp;had&nbsp;to be documented in the tower’s sign-in log — including the time period for which they were combined. 
Scolnick said combining positions late at night can be OK, as long as things remain quiet. But in this situation, a separate emergency arose due to a suspicious odor on another aircraft — the one to which the fire truck was responding. 
"Every controller that I have ever known has said something that he immediately smacked himself on the side of the head, saying, ‘Why did I do that?’ But it never ends up being catastrophic ... because they just missed," he said. 
Soon after Sunday's crash, the controller in the tower was heard saying "I messed up" to another pilot, according to an audio recording. 
In the aftermath of the collision, Scolnick noted, the controller remained professional and continued to work. "After this tragedy ...&nbsp;[the controller] kept working, kept controlling airplanes, kept moving stuff around to get them out of the way," Scolnick said. "He kept doing his job, and I think he deserves a commendation for that. Anybody can make a mistake."&nbsp; 
Runway 4, where&nbsp;the crash happened, remained closed on Tuesday, reducing the capacity at LaGuardia, one of the nation's busiest airports. 
<h3>Long TSA lines</h3> 
The NTSB&nbsp;announcement came as hourslong passenger security lines returned to LaGuardia. <a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Long lines at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport in Queens on Tuesday." data-attr-credit="Newsday" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/1d5acc4e-16e0-46b4-9f1b-a5070c6a169d" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/1d5acc4e-16e0-46b4-9f1b-a5070c6a169d', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/1d5acc4e-16e0-46b4-9f1b-a5070c6a169d"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/1d5acc4e-16e0-46b4-9f1b-a5070c6a169d/obj14791870_11212?w=400&amp;q=0.3">Long lines at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport in Queens on Tuesday.</a> 
Some of the dozens of NTSB investigators probing the crash Tuesday had themselves been stuck in security lines because of staffing shortages due to a partial government shutdown. 
Meanwhile, the mangled plane sat on the runway, tilted upward, its nose destroyed. The runway was closed indefinitely. The NTSB said Monday there was "a lot of debris" and hazardous material scattered nearby. 
Sunday night's crash also injured two Port Authority officers riding in the fire truck, which was en route to the emergency aboard a nearby plane. 
Outside the Rockville Centre home of one of those officers, Michael Orsillo, a Port Authority police vehicle was parked. 
Orsillo's wife declined to comment. 
The airport was shut down from late Sunday night until 2 p.m. Monday when it and reopened with a reduced capacity. <a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="A federal officer watches over long lines at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport in Queens on Tuesday." data-attr-credit="Newsday" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/5e41e485-b144-450b-ab0b-5b82c0dd052f" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/5e41e485-b144-450b-ab0b-5b82c0dd052f', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/5e41e485-b144-450b-ab0b-5b82c0dd052f"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/5e41e485-b144-450b-ab0b-5b82c0dd052f/NYLGA260325.jpg?w=400&amp;q=0.3">A federal officer watches over long lines at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport in Queens on Tuesday.</a> 
Newsday's Nicholas Spangler and Maureen Mullarkey contributed to this report.

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Ground radar didn't alert air traffic control before jet hit truck at LaGuardia Airport, NTSB says

NTSB: Ground radar didn't alert air traffic control before LaGuardia crash

AIAudio - Ground radar didn't alert air traffic control before jet hit truck at LaGuardia Airport, NTSB says


AIAudio - Ground radar didn't alert air traffic control before jet hit truck at LaGuardia Airport, NTSB says

Joseph Ostapiuk

Rebecca Liquori heard the grinding brakes of&nbsp;Air Canada Flight 8646 as it sped down&nbsp;Runway 4 at LaGuardia Airport. That sound was&nbsp;the result of a final, heroic act&nbsp;by two pilots who were killed when <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-air-canada-plane-crash-vek328rr">the plane crashed into a Port Authority fire truck</a>&nbsp;Sunday night and&nbsp;injured dozens of people, she said. 
"Their swift action prevented the impact to be even bigger and prevented even more fatalities," Liquori, 35, told Newsday outside her Baldwin home Tuesday morning. "Their last actions were heroic." 
Investigators are <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-crash-d2062rn4">analyzing flight data recorders</a> from the plane, which took 72 passengers and four crew members from Montreal to LaGuardia Airport, and the role of the air traffic controller who directed the Port Authority vehicle onto the tarmac. The crash occurred around 11:40 p.m.&nbsp;Antoine Forest, 30, of Quebec, was identified Monday as one of the pilots. Media outlets on Tuesday identified Mackenzie Gunther&nbsp;as the other.&nbsp; 
The front of the Bombardier jet was mangled in the crash and some passengers were bloodied and injured. Liquori was jolted forward and then slammed back in her seat as the plane came to a rest.&nbsp; 
She immediately thought about her family.&nbsp; 
"Am I never going to see my husband? Am I never going to see my sons?"&nbsp;she recalled thinking. "I just thought, ‘I don’t want it to end like this.’ " <a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Rebecca Liquori, husband Matthew Liquori and their two sons in a family photo.

 
" data-attr-credit="Liquori Family" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/6dbbee99-810a-45c7-a4f3-7f679de9e5ed" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/6dbbee99-810a-45c7-a4f3-7f679de9e5ed', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/6dbbee99-810a-45c7-a4f3-7f679de9e5ed"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/6dbbee99-810a-45c7-a4f3-7f679de9e5ed/OBJ14790590_13020?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3">Rebecca Liquori, husband Matthew Liquori and their two sons in a family photo. </a> 
She said she waited moments for directions but then knew she needed to act.&nbsp;Liquori opened the emergency exit near her seat and helped guide passengers to the wing of the plane, nervous it&nbsp;could combust into flames. 
"There was no slide, so we jumped off the wing of the plane," she said. The passengers worked together to get off the plane&nbsp;and were comforting one another when emergency authorities began arriving on scene, she said. 
While she stood on the tarmac, Liquori said she immediately felt grateful to the pilots and their attempts to stop the plane. 
"I want the heroes' families to know, in the middle of their grief, that I'm so thankful," Liquori said. "The pilots really saved all of us."&nbsp; 
When the crash happened, an automatic message sent an alert to Liquori’s emergency contacts — her husband, mother and brother — alerting them that she had been in a crash. There were tense moments for her family between that text, sent at 11:39 p.m., and when she was able to tell them she was safe. Her husband,&nbsp;Matthew Liquori, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-crash-survivors-witnesses-cu6gu75q">told Newsday</a> he endured anxious moments after&nbsp;he received the message.&nbsp; 
"It’s pretty tough when stuff like that happens, the heart sinks. It’s scary," he said. Relief flooded over him after he found she was safe and did what she could to guide passengers to safety.&nbsp; 
The moment Liquori got to hug her sons, ages 2 and 4, she felt like she "won the lottery." 
"It was the best feeling ever," she said, just minutes after she carried her oldest son onto his bus for school. "I’m still giving them extra hugs." 
The return flight made a regular trip to visit family in Canada turn "into a nightmare." She said she doesn’t plan on getting on another plane anytime soon. The heartbreak of the lives lost in the crash and the dozens of others who are injured is still raw. 
"It was just tragic all around," Liquori said. "I don’t know when I’ll get on a flight in the future."

Nassau

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Baldwin resident and LaGuardia crash survivor Rebecca Liquori remembers pilots: 'Their last actions were heroic'

LI woman who survived LaGuardia crash: 'The pilots really saved all of us'

AIAudio - Baldwin resident and LaGuardia crash survivor Rebecca Liquori remembers pilots: 'Their last actions were heroic'


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&quot;Their swift action ... prevented even more fatalities,&quot; Rebecca Liquori told Newsday outside her Baldwin home Tuesday morning.&nbsp;NewsdayTV&#39;s Ken Buffa reports.

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Baldwin

Queens

New York City

'Grateful to be alive'

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Peter Gill

As the National Transportation Safety Board begins to study the LaGuardia Airport crash that <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-crash-d2062rn4" target="_blank">killed two pilots</a> and injured dozens, experts said investigators will likely be looking into the role of human error, along with visibility due to rain, and the persistent strain placed on understaffed air traffic controllers. 
A harrowing recording of radio communications between the control tower and trucks captured apparent confusion before and after the jet struck a Port Authority firefighting and rescue truck late Sunday night. 
The truck was responding to another plane that had reported a suspicious odor sickening the crew. Before the crash happened, an air traffic controller granted permission for the truck to cross the runway — only to retract it seconds later: "Stop truck 1, stop! Stop truck 1, stop!" 
A beeping alert goes off before there are a few seconds of silence. The controller said, "Jazz 646. I saw you collide with [the] vehicle. ... I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now." 
Later, the unnamed controller said: "I messed up." 
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who visited the crash site Monday, said at a news conference that the NTSB investigation may take many months, if not up to a year. 
Michael McCormick, a former head of the Federal Aviation Administration radar facility in Ronkonkoma who now teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Florida campus, said the air traffic controller seemed to make a mistake, but wondered if he was overstretched, given that he seemed to be handling tasks usually divided between two people. 
"Normally, in an operation like this, one controller is working the ground traffic, the vehicles, the taxiing aircraft, [while] another controller is working the arriving and departing aircraft. ... And when you listen to the voice tape, it sounds a lot like the same controller is doing both," he said. 
Duffy declined to say whether the staffing Sunday night was satisfactory but noted, "LaGuardia is a well-staffed airport" and said reports there was only one air traffic controller working when the crash occurred at LaGuardia Airport are "inaccurate." LaGuardia has 33 certified air traffic controllers, another seven are in training, and the goal is to have 37 air traffic controllers, he said. 
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at a news conference said she could not release information about controller staffing or any other possible causes on Monday. 
William Waldock, who teaches aircraft accident investigation and crash management at Embry-Riddle’s Arizona campus, said that in all his years’ experience, he’d only heard of one other instance of an aircraft hitting an airport fire truck — in Lima, Peru, a few years ago. 
Waldock noted that LaGuardia is one of just a few dozen airports outfitted with a system called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X), which provides controllers a feed of where all vehicles and aircraft are located by combining ground-based radar and motion detectors with data from transponders inside aircraft. 
"Whether they were using it or not actively at that point in time, I don’t know," he said, adding that the weather may have played a role. 
"Depending on how much ground lighting there was in the area where the collision occurred ... if it was raining pretty hard, that makes it a little more difficult to see visually from the tower," Waldock said. 
John Cox, a former professional pilot who works as a consultant and accident investigator, said LaGuardia is a "very congested airspace" due to its heavy traffic and small size — but he never felt unsafe flying there. 
"The controllers are very good, and so [traffic] flows well regardless of weather," he said. 
Harvey Scolnick, a Pennsylvania-based expert who worked as a controller for 40 years before training others, agreed with McCormick’s assessment that the controller was probably handling both ground control duties and takeoffs and landings. That’s not ideal but it is often done during less-busy shifts, he said. 
Scolnick said he is hearing from current controllers that "morale is very low" because of mandatory six-day weeks and 10-hour days. Some feel as if they are constantly being judged, he said, as the internet has enabled aviation enthusiasts to share recordings of anything they say on websites like LiveATC.net. 
Understaffing of controllers has long been a concern at the FAA. After last year's midair collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people near Washington's Reagan National Airport, the NTSB found that controllers' "high workload during a period of elevated traffic" was one of several contributing factors, along with air traffic route design, data sharing and collision avoidance technology shortcomings. 
In its most recent workforce report, the FAA forecast increasing its head count of controllers and trainees by 169 in 2025, or about 1.4%, but McCormick said the agency is "months if not years" from having adequate staffing. 
Air traffic controllers are still being paid despite the partial government shutdown, which has resulted in longer-than-normal wait times at airports across the country as some 50,000 employees of the Transportation Security Administration work without pay. 
The controllers’ union said it could not comment on the crash or "adjacent issues," pending the NTSB investigation.

News

New York

NYSAFETY260324

Air traffic controller strain, staffing highlighted by crash, experts say

'I messed up': Experts question air traffic controller strain, staffing after crash

AIAudio - Air traffic controller strain, staffing highlighted by crash, experts say


Copy Of NYSAFETY260324_photos

Alfonso A. Castillo

The prolonged shutdown of LaGuardia Airport, combined with the ongoing TSA federal funding lapse and poor weather, made for a "perfect storm" of delays for airline travelers, travel experts said Monday. 
The deadly collision involving an Air Canada plane and a Port Authority rescue vehicle resulted in a 15-hour closure of LaGuardia, which serves more than 30 million travelers each year. 
By the time it reopened one of its two runways around 2 p.m., the airport had already racked up more than 600 flight cancellations, and more than 100 delays, according to FlightAware.com. 
Isabella Koelling, 18, said she had just gotten out of her Uber at Terminal B when she received an email that her 12:30 p.m. Frontier flight to Orlando, Florida, had been canceled. 
“We got here six hours early because TSA is so bad,” said Koelling, who was visiting New York with a friend. “Thought that that was going to be our primary concern. Turns out it’s not.” 
Upon LaGuardia’s reopening, Port Authority officials advised travelers to "expect delays and/or cancellations" and to "plan ahead and check with your airline for the latest updates." It will take days before debris can be removed from the runway where the crash occurred due to the investigation, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference Monday night. 
And the situation was far from ideal at other airports in the region, where waits for passenger security checks were already much longer than usual because of TSA personnel shortages caused by the ongoing lapse in federal funding. Around noon, the average wait time at the TSA PreCheck at Kennedy Airport was 140 minutes — up substantially from the usual 11 minutes, according to Qsensor, which tracks airport conditions. 
"We have a little bit of a perfect storm of things happening," said Meghan Walch, director at InsureMyTrip, a travel insurance comparison site. "Any incident in a major hub like LaGuardia can definitely cause ripple effects across the entire air travel system. So even travelers who are not flying through New York may see delays or cancellations as aircraft and crews get out of position." 
Kennedy Airport saw 198 flight delays and 10 cancellations by around 4 p.m. Monday. 
Town of Islip spokeswoman Caroline Smith said there was "no impact" from the crash on service at Long Island MacArthur Airport, which had eight delays and no cancellations Monday, according to FlightAware. 
Making matters worse, travel expert Rebecca Alesia said, is the fact that several private school students are traveling for spring break this week, and that some travelers bound for destinations in the Middle East, including those going to Israel for Passover, were already anxious over the ongoing military conflict in that region. 
"Everyone’s nerves are already frayed when it comes to travel," said Alesia, founder of Wanderology, an Oyster Bay-based luxury travel firm. "Now to wake up to something like this, it’s just really weakening traveler confidence in the infrastructure." 
Among the travelers affected by Monday's crash was Alesia's husband, Salvatore, who flew to Tampa, Florida, for the weekend to attend a college basketball game with his father, and was set to return to LaGuardia Monday morning. 
Although his original flight was canceled, Alesia eventually boarded an afternoon flight tentatively scheduled to arrive at LaGuardia, but with "no guarantee" that it wouldn't be detoured, as the airport was still closed when he took off. 
"They told us maybe halfway into the flight ... They received word that we'd be able to land [at LaGuardia]," Salvatore Alesia said.

NYDELAYS260324

At NYC airports, a 'perfect storm' of air travel woes

A 'perfect storm' of air travel woes at NYC airports

AIAudio - At NYC airports, a 'perfect storm' of air travel woes


Copy Of Travel Delays

The pilots killed in Sunday's collision between a plane and a fire truck on a runway in New York were two young, ambitious Canadian men that had long dreamed of becoming pilots.
Mackenzie Gunther and Antoine Forrest were operating the Air Canada jet that was landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday when it collided with a fire truck. Officials still haven’t identified the two men publicly, but a family member who spoke to The Associated Press and a Canadian college that one of the men attended separately confirmed their identities. 
About 40 of the roughly 70 passengers and crew members on the regional jet from Montreal, and two people from the fire truck, were taken to hospitals, some with serious injuries. Most were released by Monday morning, authorities said. 
“These were two young men at the start of their careers,” FAA Administrator Brian Bedford told reporters Monday. “It’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss.”
An investigation is underway into the cause. Federal officials said on Tuesday that a runway warning system failed to sound an alarm moments before the collision, and are looking into the role of the air traffic controllers and what they were doing while juggling a late night emergency involving another plane. The crash occurred during an already messy time at U.S. airports because of a partial government shutdown.
Here is what is known so far about both pilots. 
<h2>Antoine Forest</h2>
Jeannette Gagnier, the great aunt of one of the pilots, identified him as Antoine Forest. Gagnier, who said that Forest looked to her as a grandmother figure, told AP that he always wanted to be a pilot. His LinkedIn page showed he had worked for two airlines the past five years.
Forest's Facebook page said that he was from Coteau-du-Lac, a small city in southwestern Québec. The mayor of Coteau-du-Lac, Andrée Brosseau, offered condolences to Forest's family in a translated post on Tuesday from French. 
“Antoine was one of our own. In a community like ours, everyone knows someone who knew him. His passing represents an immense loss for our entire community,” Brosseau wrote.
Antoine’s brother, Cédric Forest, shared a picture of his brother and him when they were kids. “Have a safe flight, my brother! Oh yes, we’ve often heard that phrase, but this time will be the last,” he wrote on Facebook. “You were coming and going in the wind, always full of new projects in mind. Gone again in the wind too soon to say goodbye I love you brother you can leave with your head held high.”
A woman who said she is Forest's girlfriend and also a young pilot shared a photo of the couple on her Facebook account on Tuesday captioned “the love of my life.”
<h2>Mackenzie Gunther</h2>
Toronto college Seneca Polytechnic said in a statement on Tuesday that Mackenzie Gunther graduated from its Honors Bachelor of Aviation Technology program in 2023.
He joined the Jazz Aviation Pathways Program, a training program operated by Air Canada, immediately after graduating. The flight that crashed on Tuesday was a Jazz Aviation plane operating on behalf of Air Canada. 
“Seneca sends our deepest condolences to Mr. Gunther’s family and friends, and to his former colleagues and professors. He will be deeply missed,” the school's post said.
The school lowered its flags to half-staff to honor Gunther on Tuesday. 
Some have said it was a miracle that more people weren't hurt, and at least one passenger Clément Lelièvre credited Gunther and Forest's “incredible reflexes” with saving his life and those of others. The pilots braked extremely hard just as the plane touched down, he said.

Nation/World

AP-US-LaGuardia-Crash-Pilots-Identified, 2nd Ld-Writethru

Pilots killed in LaGuardia collision were young Canadians who had long dreamed of flying planes

Copy Of LaGuardia Crash

NEW YORK — It took less than a minute for a routine landing to spiral into a deadly crash Sunday at New York's LaGuardia Airport. But the collision between an Air Canada flight and a fire truck crossing the runway was the culmination of a series of events that began much earlier. 
The Associated Press created this timeline based on a review of air traffic control recordings and information from the Federal Aviation Administration, publicly available flight tracking data and the National Transportation Safety Board, including information it obtained from the jet's cockpit voice recorder.
<h2>A late departure from Montreal</h2>
10:12 p.m.: Air Canada Express Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, leaves Montréal–Trudeau International Airport, two hours and 13 minutes late. By the time the aircraft reaches New York, it is part of an influx of late-arriving flights, including some waiting extended periods for a gate.
<h2>Issues on the ground at LaGuardia</h2>
11:16:42 p.m.: A United aircraft, Flight 2384, aborts takeoff for a second time because of an anti-ice warning light in the cockpit.
11:20:48 p.m.: “We have an odor on the plane as well here at this time," the United pilot reports. “We are going to be going back to the gate, request fire as well,” using shorthand for the airport’s fire rescue team.
11:21:12 p.m.: Another pilot chimes in: “If that’s a sewer smell … we smelled that too going around the terminal there.”
11:22:24 p.m.: A controller asks the United pilot if it is a smoke odor. He responds: “No, it was a weird odor. I don’t know exactly how to describe it,” and says he can't get ahold of anyone to obtain a gate assignment.
11:24:49 p.m.: The controller confirms there is no gate available. He asks the pilot, “Do you still need us to send fire there?” The pilot says yes, citing the odor.
11:27:44 p.m.: United 2384’s pilot tells the controller he doesn't plan on evacuating the plane. The controller instructs the pilot to move to another taxiway.
11:29:54 p.m.: United 2384 makes a wrong turn and ends up in a different part of the taxiway, but the controller doesn't sound concerned. "You can just stay over there … and we’ll have the guys go over there,” he says.
11:31:41 p.m.: United 2384 declares an emergency. The pilot says: “The flight attendants in the back are feeling ill because of the odor. We will need to go into any available gate at this time.”
11:31:59 p.m.: The controller asks again if there’s an available gate, telling the person he’s speaking with, “now they’re declaring an emergency. They want to get out.”
11:33:39 p.m.: The controller tells United 2384 there is still no open gate, but fire trucks are headed over with a stair truck if they want to evacuate. "Let me know if you do,” he says.
<h2>Flight 8646 is cleared to land</h2>
11:34:18 p.m.: In a routine step near the end of a flight, the air traffic controller handling approaches into LaGuardia instructs the pilots of Air Canada Express Flight 8646 pilots to contact the airport’s control tower, which will guide them the rest of the way.
11:35:08 p.m.: Flight 8646 is cleared to land on Runway 4/22.
<h2>Fire truck is cleared to cross</h2>
11:36:45 p.m.: At the airport, a controller asks: “Is there a vehicle that needed to cross the runway?”
11:37:00 p.m.: “Truck 1 and company, LaGuardia Tower, requesting to cross 4 at Delta,” the firefighter says, meaning he is requesting clearance to use Taxiway D to cross Runway 4 — the same runway where Flight 8646 is about to land.
11:37:05 p.m.: “Truck 1 and company cross 4 at Delta,” the controller says, authorizing the truck and other emergency vehicles to cross Runway 4. Simultaneously, on a different frequency, the pilot on the odor-stricken United flight reports that his plane has finally been cleared to go to a gate.
11:37:08 p.m.: “Truck 1 and company crossing 4 at Delta," a firefighter in Truck 1 repeats, confirming that the controller has cleared the vehicle to cross. 
11:37:11 p.m.: An electronic call out in Flight 8646’s cockpit indicates the plane is 50 feet above the ground.
11:37:12 p.m.: A controller tells the pilot of an outbound Frontier Airlines flight to stop on a taxiway.
<h2>Flight 8646 lands and collides with the fire truck</h2>
11:37:15 p.m.: “Sorry, Truck 1,” a controller says as Flight 8646 bears down on Runway 4/22.
11:37:16 p.m.: A controller then frantically tells the fire crew: “Stop. Stop Stop. Stop. Truck 1. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop."
11:37:17 p.m.: Flight 8646’s cockpit voice recorder captures a sound that investigators say is consistent with the plane’s landing gear touching down..
11:37:19 p.m.: Flight 8646's first officer, who was flying the plane, transfers control to the captain.
11:37:20 p.m.: The controller continues, “Stop Truck 1. Stop. Stop Truck 1. Stop.” As he speaks, an alarm begins to beep.
11:37:25 p.m.: Flight 8646 slams into the fire truck. The cockpit voice recording stops.
<h2>Aftermath</h2>
11:37:45 p.m.: A controller tells the pilot of the next plane set to land to “go around,” meaning he should keep flying instead of landing.
The controller then tries to raise the pilots of Flight 8646. "I see you collided with a vehicle there. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.” Other rescue vehicles race to the crash site.
11:55:37 p.m.: The pilot of another plane tells a controller: “That wasn’t good to watch." The controller responds: “Yeah, I know. I was here ... We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.” The pilot says: “Nah, man, you did the best you could.”

AP-US-LaGuardia-Crash-Timeline

A timeline of the deadly collision at LaGuardia Airport

Investigators Monday were analyzing&nbsp;flight data recorders from a regional Air Canada&nbsp;plane that crashed&nbsp;into a Port Authority fire truck on a LaGuardia Airport runway, killing the two pilots and injuring dozens — including a flight attendant ejected while strapped to her seat — as questions remained about the role of air traffic controllers in the collision. 
Nearly a full day after the crash, the wreckage of the Bombardier jet, with cables and debris dangling from its mangled cockpit, remained&nbsp;on the runway,&nbsp;its crumpled nose sheared off and pointing toward the sky. 
<h3>The investigation begins</h3> 
Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the federal probe into the crash,&nbsp;said she expects information from the flight recorders to be shared Tuesday after they were plucked from the plane through a hole drilled into the top of the craft. 
"We have a lot of data," she said in an airport news conference, including the staffing of the air traffic control tower on duty at the time of the collision. The team, she said,&nbsp;will examine what's left of the plane, which touched down in mist and fog coming from Montreal,&nbsp;and the fire truck, scattered over Runway 4. 
"There is a tremendous amount of debris,"&nbsp;Homendy said of the crash site, adding it will be days before the runway can reopen. 
Among the focus points of the investigation, experts said, will be the role of the air traffic controller who directed the truck onto the tarmac. 
Only moments before the ferocious impact, which demolished the front of the plane, an&nbsp;air traffic controller can be heard on airport communications, recorded on ATC.com, frantically&nbsp;pleading with the truck&nbsp;to stop before the audio abruptly cuts out. When the audio returns minutes later, the controller appears to acknowledge&nbsp;the error, blaming himself for the collision. 
"We were dealing with an emergency earlier," the controller said. "I messed up." 
The crash sent more than 40 people to the hospital, according to officials and family members. 
The vehicle, occupied by a Port Authority sergeant and officer — both of whom survived the collision — was on the tarmac just before midnight responding to another plane&nbsp;reporting an odor issue onboard.&nbsp; 
The crash, which shut down all flights at one of the nation's busiest airports for hours before they resumed after 2 p.m.,&nbsp;is the first known aviation death at LaGuardia in 34&nbsp;years. 
<h3>Lives on the line</h3> 
The collision&nbsp;occurred around 11:40 p.m. Sunday when Air Canada Express Flight 8646, which departed from Montreal with 72 passengers and four crew members on board,&nbsp;landed on Runway 4, federal and state officials said at a news conference Monday at LaGuardia. 
The CRJ-900 jet, operated by Jazz Aviation LP, smashed into a vehicle occupied by&nbsp;Port Authority Police Sgt. Michael Orsillo, of Rockville Centre, and Officer Adrian Baez, of Queens, who had been deployed to assist a United Airlines plane, officials said.&nbsp; 
Both men suffered&nbsp; injuries, officials said. One was expected to be released from the hospital Monday while the other will remain overnight for observation, said&nbsp;Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 
"It's incredibly sad. It’s troubling,"&nbsp;Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the news conference. "And I just want to let America know that we are working our hearts off to make sure that when people travel, whether by air or car or air, that they travel safely." 
Robert Zafonte, president of the Port Authority Sergeants Benevolent Association, said his members "bravely put themselves in danger every time they answer the call of duty to help save lives. We ask that the public refrain from any rush to judgment while this investigation takes its course." 
One of the pilots was identified by family members who spoke to a Canadian media outlet as&nbsp;Antoine Forest, 30, of&nbsp;Quebec. The other has not been identified. 
"These were two young men at the start of their career, so it's an absolute tragedy," said&nbsp;Bryan Bedford, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. 
President Donald Trump called the crash "terrible" and said "they made a mistake," without elaborating, before departing for an event in Memphis, Tennessee. 
Marco Alcantara, 25, of Chicago, said he was aboard the United Airways flight with the suspicious odor that was later evacuated. 
"It's surreal," he told Newsday while lying on the floor of Terminal B. " ... It’s a little scary." 
<h3>Heroic passengers</h3> 
Forty-one passengers and crew members were sent to Elmhurst Hospital; at least 32 have since been released, Garcia said. 
Among the injured was&nbsp;flight attendant Solange Tremblay, who was ejected&nbsp;from the aircraft and found 320 feet from the plane still strapped to her seat, her daughter,&nbsp;Sarah Lépine told&nbsp;Quebec’s TVA News.&nbsp; 
Lépine&nbsp; said her mother suffered a broken leg but called it a "complete miracle" &nbsp;she survived. 
"She had a guardian angel watching over her,"&nbsp;Lépine told the Canadian news outlet.&nbsp;"It could have been much worse." 
Witnesses said the plane's&nbsp;escape slides did not deploy, so passengers, including&nbsp;Rebecca Liquori, of Baldwin, had to scramble over the wings to safety, she told News 12 Long Island, where she previously worked. 
In an interview with Newsday, Matthew Liquori, Rebecca's husband, said he's heard from strangers about his wife's heroism and quick thinking. 
"I am really proud of her," he said of his wife, who was at a hospital being evaluated for a concussion. "Some people were saying that she saved their lives because she was the one that got the emergency door open." 
<h3>Staffing a concern</h3> 
Two aviation experts told Newsday the controller may have been handling tasks normally meant for two people. 
"Normally, in an operation like this, one controller is working the ground traffic, the vehicles, the taxiing aircraft, [while] another controller is working the arriving and departing aircraft," said Michael McCormick, a former head of the FAA radar facility in Ronkonkoma. "And when you listen to the voice tape, it sounds a lot like the same controller is doing both. That definitely contributes to a workload issue that could be a factor in this." 
Harvey Scolnick, who spent about 40 years as an air traffic controller and another decade training controllers, added "it sounds to me like it might have been the same controller" handling both tasks.&nbsp; 
The FAA keeps a database of "runway incursions," which occur on airport&nbsp;landing strips. It classifies incidents from A (the most serious — an accident or near-accident) to E (the least serious), records show. Last year, there were four C-level incursions at LaGuardia and one each at Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports, figures show. 
Duffy said 33 of the 37 certified controller positions&nbsp;are filled and operate out of LaGuardia while seven more are in training.&nbsp; 
The NTSB, he said, will determine how many controllers were working Sunday night and he dismissed "rumors" it was just one.&nbsp; 
"It is a well-staffed airport," Duffy said, repeating calls for Congress to increase funding for air traffic control hires. 
Air traffic controllers are not among those impacted by the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown that has caused extensive delays at airport security checkpoints in recent days.

NYLGA260324

LaGuardia runway crash: Questions remain about role of air traffic controllers in fatal collision

Investigators analyzing flight data records from fatal LaGuardia collision

AIAudio - LaGuardia runway crash: Questions remain about role of air traffic controllers in fatal collision


Copy Of NYLGA260324

The airport was closed until about 2 p.m. Monday after a&nbsp;plane crashed into a fire truck on a runway Sunday night, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of others. NewsdayTV&#39;s Virginia Huie reports.

nyLGAMMJ260324_video

LaGuardia Airport reopens after fatal collision

'It was chaotic'

nyLGA260324_photos

Two pilots were&nbsp;killed in a crash between a regional Air Canada plane and a firefighting vehicle late Sunday night on a LaGuardia Airport runway. Here&#39;s <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-crash-travel-investigation-ct2c6zx8">what we know:</a>

&mdash; The incident occurred at about 11:40 p.m., when a Jazz Aviation flight, operating on behalf of Air Canada, struck a Port Authority firefighting and rescue vehicle, the Port Authority said in a statement.

&mdash; The crash happened as the plane was landing and the vehicle was responding to a separate incident.

&mdash; Jazz Aviation officials said the plane was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members. In addition to the two pilots who were killed, 41 people aboard the plane were hospitalized, according to the Port Authority.

&mdash; Two aviation experts told Newsday that the air traffic controller who gave permission to the firefighting truck to enter the runway may have been handling tasks normally meant for two people. Minutes after the crash, an air traffic controller is heard saying he &quot;messed up.&quot;

Newsday&#39;s live coverage has ended. For the latest, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-airport-crash-d2062rn4" target="_blank">click here</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;For more photos from the crash and the scene at LaGuardia Airport, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/laguardia-air-canada-plane-crash-pdcm67a1">click here</a>.

nyLGABLOG

Latest updates: 2 pilots dead, dozens injured after jet crashes into fire truck at LaGuardia; airport reopens

Latest updates: LaGuardia reopens after crash that experts suggest could be the result of understaffing

nyLGA260324

Complete coverage: LaGuardia Air Canada runway crash

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