The wreckage of an Air Canada Express jet that collided with fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on March 24. The crash killed both pilots.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
A firefighter in the truck that was hit by a landing Air Canada Express passenger jet on New York’s LaGuardia Airport runway heard a command to stop but did not know who it was for, the U.S. safety investigator says in its preliminary report on the March 22 crash that killed both pilots.
The pilots, Antoine Forest of Coteau-du-Lac, and Mackenzie Gunther of Ontario, died when the Mitsubishi CRJ900 en route from Montreal carrying 72 passengers collided with the truck, which had been cleared by an air traffic controller to cross the runway moments before it was told to halt.
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The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, in a report issued on Thursday, said the turret operator in the fire truck heard the command “stop, stop, stop” on the control tower radio “but he did not know who that transmission was intended for.”
“He subsequently heard ‘Truck 1, stop, stop, stop’ and realized it was for them and subsequently noticed that they had entered the runway,” the NTSB report says. “He further recalled that as they turned left, he saw the airplane’s lights on the runway.”
The nose of the plane, operated by Halifax’s Jazz Aviation under contract to Air Canada, was destroyed by the impact. Solange Tremblay, a flight attendant, was thrown far from the site of the crash still secured to her seat and suffered multiple injuries. Thirty-nine people were taken to hospital, six with serious injuries.
The plane’s last recorded ground speed was 104 miles an hour, the NTSB says.
An image from the preliminary report into the collision of an Air Canada jet and a firefighting truck at LaGuardia Airport. The green circle shows where the ground vehicles initially gathered, the yellow dash line their intended path and the red star indicates where the collision occurred.Supplied
The NTSB report, which contains no findings of cause or contributing factors, will be followed by a final study at a later date.
The initial report says the plane was given clearance to land on Runway Four at 11:35 p.m. At around the same time, seven emergency vehicles approached the runway on a taxiway as they prepared to respond to an emergency across the airport.
At 11:36, the air traffic controller asked which vehicle needed to cross Runway Four, after missing an earlier transmission. The trucks were given the okay to cross, with the plane at 130 feet above ground and on its final approach.
At 11:37, the controller repeatedly told the lead truck to stop, but its speed accelerated as it approached the runway crossing.
The collision occurred two seconds after touchdown. The truck turned left just before the collision, while the plane’s rudder was turned to the left just before the end of the flight data recorder, the report said.
More to come