The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada passenger plane died in a collision with an emergency vehicle at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late on Sunday, authorities said.
Another 39 people aboard the plane as well as two people inside the vehicle were injured. While 32 have since been discharged from hospital, some remain seriously injured, said Kathryn Garcia, the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, on Monday morning.
Flight operations at the major New York area airport have been temporarily shut down.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launched an investigation into the cause of the crash, which occurred on a runway as the flight landed in New York at around 11:40 pm (0340 GMT).
The aircraft, operated by Jazz Aviation and arriving from Montréal, was a Bombardier CRJ-900 carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.
The vehicle that hit the plane was a firefighting truck that had been responding to a separate incident on another passenger jet and had initially been cleared to cross the runway.
Air traffic control was heard urgently trying to prevent the collision, shouting repeated instructions to stop the vehicle, according to audio published by CNN.
Images showed the aircraft tilting upward, with the nose torn apart and debris scattered across the runway.
The NTSB will examine communication between the control tower, the emergency vehicle and the aircraft.
LaGuardia is primarily used for domestic flights within the United States.
A view of a destroyed vehicle at Laguarda Airport after an Air Canada plane collided with a vehicle leaving two Pilots dead and many injured. The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada passenger plane died and another 41 people were injured in a collision with an emergency vehicle at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late on Sunday, authorities said. Niyi Fote/TheNEWS2 via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa