Firefighter heard 'stop, stop' before LaGuardia jet crash, but didn't know who it was for, NTSB says

Moments before last month's collision between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport, another firefighter radioed for the emergency vehicle to "stop stop stop," but one of the operators didn't know it was meant for them, federal transportation officials said Thursday.

The confusion was caused by a breakdown in communication between air traffic controllers and Port Authority firefighters heading to another runway incident at the time of the March 22 crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report. 

The runway crash killed the two pilots of Air Canada Flight 8646 out of Montreal and injured dozens of passengers and crew.

A final NTSB report on the crash is expected in 12 to 24 months.

The preliminary report found that a series of red runway lights that signal an inbound plane were functioning correctly at the intersection of a taxiway and runway where the crash occurred.

But the airport’s crash prevention system did not "predict a potential conflict with the landing airplane" and warn air traffic controllers, the report said. The controllers did not get an alert because the fire trucks did not have transponders that would have broadcast the vehicle's positions near the runway, the report said.

Communication concerns are highlighted throughout the report, beginning about two minutes before the crash, when another one of the half-dozen fire trucks looking to cross the runway to get to an emergency near Terminal B could not radio air traffic control. That truck’s transmission was "obscured" by "a simultaneous radio transmission on the same frequency," according to the report. Around that time, another plane landed on the incident runway.

An air traffic controller, meanwhile, had cleared the Air Canada Express jet to land on Runway 4, according to the report. About a minute-and-a-half later, with the aircraft on final approach, the red lights indicating it was about to land turned on. Five seconds later, the air traffic controller cleared the fire truck to cross the runway.

Sixteen seconds later, the controller, who was giving "a taxiing instruction to another airplane," instructed the fire truck to stop as it accelerated toward the runway. A firefighter on another vehicle heading to the same emergency "saw the airplane and announced ‘stop stop stop’ on the radio," the report said.

One of the operators of the fire truck involved in the crash recalled hearing the warning "but he did not know who that transmission was intended for."
The report said one of the fire truck's operators "subsequently heard ‘Truck 1 stop stop stop’ and realized it was for them and subsequently noticed that they had entered the runway."

The crash occurred about 12 seconds later.

When asked about the NTSB’s findings, as well as whether airport first responder vehicles would be outfitted with transponders, a spokesperson for the Port Authority directed Newsday to a statement from chief communications officer James Allen.

"We appreciate the NTSB’s work and the speed with which they’ve released this preliminary report," Allen said. "We’re conducting a comprehensive review of the initial findings and investigative materials. Our focus is straightforward: ensure our safety procedures and protocols are as strong as they can be and take action to strengthen them as needed."

The initial report outlines investigators' preliminary findings — including interviews conducted with airport first responders, cockpit audio, surveillance video, vehicle maintenance records and the evening’s meteorological conditions — but does not explicitly determine the cause of the crash.

A full report will also "determine what the best course of action is" for preventing another similar tragedy, Janie Daly, director of Farmingdale State College's aviation center at Republic Airport, told Newsday.

"What stands out to me is the fact that aviation has come so far and yet we still have so much to learn," Daly said in a telephone interview. "Ultimately, the outcome from something regrettable like this ... will be that aviation as a whole will become even safer."

Transponders on first responder vehicles could have helped prevent the crash, but their absence cannot yet be deemed the sole culprit, Robert Joslin, an associate professor of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s College of Aviation in Daytona Beach, Florida, told Newsday.

"The whole idea behind it was to prevent these kinds of things because it tracks the aircraft and the vehicles and everything else, as long as they’re properly equipped," Joslin said of the tracking and alert system. "If not, then they have to rely upon other technology [such as] surface radar, which is a little less accurate."