The National Transportation Safety Board has raised concerns about staffing and procedures after an Air Canada Express jet collided with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport Sunday night, killing two pilots.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said two air traffic controllers were in the tower at the time and at least one was performing multiple duties. She warned against blaming individual controllers, noting LaGuardia’s heavy workload and calling the issue systemic.
Investigators reported a local controller — responsible for active runways and immediate airport airspace — and the controller in charge, who oversees overall safety, were on duty. The controller in charge also was acting as clearance delivery, which issues departure clearances. The NTSB has conflicting accounts on whether either controller was also serving as ground controller, who manages vehicles on taxiways. Homendy said the air traffic control team has long flagged concerns about staffing during the midnight shift; while fatigue has been a focus in past investigations, there is no current indication it was a factor here.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said LaGuardia is relatively well staffed: the airport wants 37 controllers, had 33 on hand, with seven in training.
The NTSB recovered the cockpit voice recorder and summarized the final three minutes. As the aircraft approached, the crew completed the landing checklist and received altitude/approach alerts. An unknown airport vehicle transmission was “stepped on” — interrupted — by another transmission. Firefighters radioed the tower requesting to cross the runway while responding to reports of fumes from a United Airlines plane; controllers granted the request.
Controllers told the truck to stop nine seconds before the cockpit recording ended. The fire truck did not have a transponder. The tower can use an Airport Surface Detection System Model X (ASDE-X) to track surface movements, but ASDE-X did not generate an alert here; the NTSB tech center reported the system failed to create a high-confidence track because vehicles were merging and unmerging near the runway.
Timeline from the recording: about eight seconds before it ends the plane sounds like it lands; six seconds out the first officer transfers control to the captain; four seconds out controllers again told the firefighters to stop.
The NTSB still has many unanswered questions: who made the transmission that was stepped on, why a controller remained on duty after the crash, whether the firefighters heard the stop commands, whether the pilots saw the truck, and if there was any cockpit confusion. Homendy emphasized that major accidents rarely result from a single failure and that multiple layers of defense failed in this case. The investigation is ongoing and preliminary information may change.
