The horrific crash between Air Canada Express flight 8646 and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on March 22 sent shockwaves across the aviation community. Now, as authorities investigate the incident, the ATC audio has surfaced on YouTube, highlighting the exact moment the aircraft and the fire truck collided, and the words of regret spoken after.
It is no secret that an air traffic controller’s job can get hectic. However, the controller at LaGuardia Airport was dealing with air traffic, ground aircraft, ground vehicles, and a ground emergency.
While they are trained for high-level multitasking, things went wrong in this case as a result of multiple factors, eventually leading to the ground collision.
Just before the crash, the controller was dealing with a United Airlines flight that had rejected takeoff, requested a return to the gate, and asked for fire support, as something did not seem right.
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However, with all gates occupied at the busy airport, the controller had to manage the situation. What made matters worse was that the United Airlines flight made a wrong turn on a taxiway, adding to the chaos.
Amid the back-and-forth, the fire truck responding to the emergency declared by the United Airlines flight was hit by the Air Canada Express flight 8646, which was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.
The incident led to the death of both pilots, while dozens of passengers were injured. The Express CRJ-900 aircraft was damaged beyond recognition in its nose area.
The YouTube video highlights the time when the fire truck (Truck 1 and Company) requested LaGuardia Tower to cross Runway 4 at Delta. The tower granted permission immediately, but that was the exact time when Air Canada Express flight 8646 had arrived from Montreal and was still speeding down the runway.
The fire truck driver then confirmed with the tower that it was crossing Runway 4 at Delta. It likely struck the controller at that moment that both the aircraft and the firetruck were on a path to a collision on Runway 4. Ordering them to stop, he said:
“Frontier 4195, just stop there, please. Stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1, stop, stop, stop! Stop, Truck 1, stop! Stop, Truck 1, stop!”
Sadly, repeated requests to stop the truck went unheard due to the collision.
Jalopnik reported the radio transcript after the incident, when the controller was discussing the next steps. His regret-filled words, “I messed up,” hit hard, as if signaling a lost battle. The transcript reads:
10:17: Alright, there’s an incident on the field.
10:19: Yeah, we saw it, man.
11:42: Call us back at 10 minutes. There’s incident on the field. The airport’s closed right now.
18:08: We’re not moving aircraft right now, all right. when I have more for you, I will reach out. I don’t know, just call the tower and we’ll figure it out. This could have been a big incident.
25:22: I got the word that we’re gonna be close for a little while. If you want to prepare to return to the ramp, let me know.
25:26: Yeah, we got stuff in progress that’s for that, man. That was…that wasn’t good to watch.
25:31: Yeah, I know I was here. I tried to reach out to my stuff, and we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.
25:37: No, man, you did the best you could.
