- 9 hours ago
Air Canada Express Crash
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00:00Following breaking news this morning at LaGuardia Airport, all flights are canceled after a plane collided with a Port Authority
00:08firetruck.
00:09Now this happened just before midnight. Two pilots were killed. Dozens of other people are injured.
00:15This video from the scene showing the wrecked plane, nose tilted up to the sky. The crash truck is seen
00:21nearby.
00:21A tragedy last night at LaGuardia Airport as Jazz 646 and Air Canada CRJ 900 collides with a firetruck at
00:32LaGuardia Airport on runway 4.
00:35All we know this so far is that both pilots were killed in that collision.
00:41One of the flight attendants was thrown clear of the airplane, at least according to early reports.
00:46The aircraft in question was a CRJ 900 en route from Montreal to LaGuardia.
00:52The incident takes place at about 11.45 at night at LaGuardia.
00:57I'm going to play the ATC audio for you here and I'm going to allow it to play all the
01:02way through.
01:03Usually I stop and make comments. I'm not.
01:06Just a trigger warning. There is a collision here. You know that there's a death coming up.
01:10But I want you to listen to what takes place between the controller and the firetruck and the controller and
01:19the aircraft.
01:20And then I'll give you all the extenuating circumstances because there's a bunch of them.
01:24There's a bunch of things that were taking place behind the scenes that we didn't see listening to this.
01:30We'll come back. We'll circle back and I'll unwrap all of that for you.
01:34But let's listen to what happened just last night at LaGuardia.
01:38Truck 1 and Company, LaGuardia Tower.
01:40Truck 1 and Company.
01:42Truck 1 and Company, LaGuardia Tower requesting to cross four at Delta.
01:46Truck 1 and Company, cross four at Delta.
01:50Truck 1 and Company crossing four at Delta.
01:53Frontier 4195 to stop there please.
01:57Stop, stop, stop, stop. Truck 1, stop, stop.
01:59Stop truck 1, stop.
02:01Stop truck 1, stop.
02:03Sometimes.
02:11Jazz 646 is the aircraft that collided with the fire truck, and this is a rather large
02:25fire truck.
02:26And so you can see the pictures of the damage done to the airplane just now, and it's extensive.
02:32The pilots were apparently killed instantly upon impact.
02:36The early reports are is that the aircraft struck the fire truck at about 30 knots.
02:42That could be accurate.
02:44The ADS-B data is notoriously inaccurate down on the ground.
02:48My guess is they were probably going a little bit faster than that when they struck this
02:52truck, but again, it's a very large truck.
02:54So again, a lot of impact, and aircraft aren't designed to take an impact like a car or a
02:59truck would be.
03:01Now, we don't know of any other fatalities.
03:02There are a number of other injuries, both on the aircraft and I'm assuming in this truck
03:07as well.
03:08So, what were the extenuating circumstances that went into what was happening last night?
03:13Well, number one is this.
03:15It's the weather.
03:17Weather was not cooperating at LaGuardia last night.
03:19In fact, it was six statute miles of visibility in light rain and mist.
03:24And so, think about when you're driving down a road at night, the poor visibility that you
03:29get when it's raining out or it's misty out.
03:33And airport runways are not lit like some freeways are lit.
03:38Sometimes there's lights over top of the freeway that illuminates the pavement in front
03:44of you.
03:45That's not the case on a runway.
03:48The runway lights are there to outline the edges of the runway.
03:51And then there's centerline lights, but they're actually embedded in the concrete.
03:55They're there just for the aircraft that's landing to see where the centerline is.
03:59They're not there to illuminate the pavement and everything else around.
04:02So, the lights that the aircraft has on are about it in terms of lighting.
04:07A truck like this is going to have the normal rear lights and it's going to have the headlights
04:13in the front.
04:14But sideways, there's not going to be a lot of lights on the side of that truck.
04:18And given the fact that it was probably really poor visibility in the rain, I don't think
04:23the Jazz 646 saw this truck until maybe just the last second.
04:28And I don't think they could have even stopped then because of the wetness of the runway.
04:32The aircraft would slide on that runway.
04:35It would be much more difficult to bring the aircraft to a stop.
04:38The ceiling at LaGuardia last night was 800 to 1400 overcast.
04:42So, it was a ragged ceiling, kind of like the waves of clouds that are moving through when
04:46there's a weather system going through broken layer at 800, so that would be the last hard
04:51layer at 800.
04:52So, this aircraft probably broke out right around 800, 700 feet.
04:58They're looking down the runway, but they might not be able to see that far.
05:01And when they're cleared to land, they haven't cleared the truck onto the runway yet.
05:07The truck is still off the runway.
05:08So, as the pilots are looking out, they see a clear runway as much as they can see in the
05:13rain, right, and they've been cleared to land by the tower.
05:16Now, truck one, which is the main fire truck at LaGuardia, calls, as they should, and asks
05:22for permission to cross runway four at Delta.
05:25Where is Delta exactly?
05:27Well, let me show you a schematic here of, or a diagram of LaGuardia Airport and where
05:33taxiway at Delta is.
05:35So, this is runway four right here at this end, the lower right hand of the diagram as
05:41we're looking at it, Jazz comes in to land on runway four, and taxiway Delta is right
05:46here.
05:47It's about, it's between a third and a half of the way down the runway.
05:52It's not far down the runway.
05:53They would have touched down about the 2,000 foot mark on this runway.
05:58They would have been going really fast still at Delta.
06:03They would have expected to take the entirety of the runway to roll out, and I'm going to
06:06talk about runway four at LaGuardia in a minute because it's important.
06:09If you're, if you're ever based in LaGuardia or you're an experienced pilot that's flown
06:13into LaGuardia a lot, you know about runway four and what I'm going to say when we get
06:19to that point.
06:19Now, the visibility was at night and it was somewhere between that highway I'm describing
06:24with all the, the overhead lights illuminating it and the two lane country road that's completely
06:28dark.
06:29Think about how kind of nerve wracking that is when you're trying to drive down a two lane
06:32road at night and it's raining.
06:34It's not as bad as that, but it's not as good as a highway with, with the overhead lights.
06:39It's somewhere in between.
06:40So again, the visibility on the part of the truck is limited because they're again, they
06:46would have to be looking out the right hand side.
06:47I don't know how many people were in the truck.
06:50Maybe it was only the driver.
06:51Maybe there wasn't anybody in the right hand seat to look and to clear them.
06:55And again, these aren't experienced pilots in the truck.
06:58These are firemen, uh, they're not trained to gauge distances of aircraft landing.
07:04And so this aircraft, once it was cleared to land, might've broken out shortly after
07:09that and looking down, even if they did look at it, they're seeing lights out at a distance
07:14on a rainy night.
07:16So those lights out at a distance, it's hard to gauge how far away they are.
07:20And they're relying, they're relying and trusting the tower to clear them onto the runway.
07:27So they're following the protocol that they're supposed to by calling the tower.
07:31Now, here's the other extenuating circumstance.
07:34They were talking on two different frequencies.
07:36The tower is talking to the airplane on one frequency and he's talking to the fire truck
07:41on another.
07:42And again, this is a big issue in aviation.
07:45Why we're still talking on different frequencies?
07:47Because the tower has not heard that there's an aircraft cleared to land.
07:51He's trusting the tower controller who told him it was cleared across the runway, that
07:56the runway is in fact clear.
07:59Jazz, who's landing on short final, they're almost in the flare when this truck starts
08:04to cross the runway.
08:06They're trusting the tower that there's nobody in front of them and they might not have seen
08:11that fire truck down there at Delta.
08:13And at that point, once they touch down, it's impossible for them to go around.
08:18Because if they went around and they hit the power, they'd still need a bunch of runway
08:21to lift off again.
08:22It would be well past the truck.
08:24So they've got to stop before Delta, which is impossible, I can tell you that.
08:28It's not possible on a rainy night to stop before Delta taxiway at LaGuardia.
08:34They're doomed to strike something if it's still on the runway at LaGuardia.
08:38Now, you heard the air traffic controller's voice.
08:41He sees what's happening.
08:43He calls out to the fire truck.
08:45He says, truck one, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, but he said truck one real fast.
08:50I'm not sure.
08:51I think he was on the frequency that was truck one could hear, but truck one now is kind
08:56of between a rock and a hard place.
08:58They're already on the runway and so what do they do?
09:01Can they gun it and get off?
09:03Well, taxiway Delta, as you can see, kind of goes a little bit at an angle.
09:08It's not as straight across, so they would have to turn a little bit onto runway four
09:12to exit onto Delta.
09:15And let's say they hit the gas.
09:18It wasn't enough time to avoid Jazz 646, who's landing now and can't stop on the runway and
09:25the collision takes place.
09:27Both pilots die in that collision.
09:30Why didn't the tower tell the airplane to go around?
09:33Well, once the airplane, I think once he realized what was going on, the airplane was already
09:37touching down.
09:38So again, air traffic controllers are trained to give airplanes commands.
09:43They would give them commands like go around or command like takeoff clearance canceled.
09:48And then the crew is trained to know what that means and they will take the appropriate response.
09:53The communication with vehicles on a runway, fire vehicles, crash vehicles, so forth, is a
10:00little more informal.
10:02There are some things that they are trained to say back and forth to each other.
10:05But I've listened to a lot of these conversations over the years, even at LaGuardia.
10:10And it's usually like, just stop, just go, you know, it's not, they're not trained to
10:15give a command and know how to respond to it.
10:17Now stop, stop, stop.
10:19That's pretty clear.
10:20But again, that might not have been the right thing for them to do at that point.
10:24It might have been done it.
10:25Well, again, the controller is not, he can't tell them to do that either.
10:29At that point, he's just hoping that they're not that far on the runway and somehow the
10:35Jazz 646 can avoid them.
10:37That didn't take place last night.
10:38So it's not feasible at this point in the flight when the airplane's already touched
10:42down to tell the airplane to go around.
10:44That's why no instructions were given to the airplane.
10:47Why didn't the truck see the plane?
10:49Well, again, it's hard to gauge distances and it's hard to gauge relative motion.
10:56So if you see lights out in the distance, it could be a large airplane that's a long
11:02ways away.
11:03It could be a small airplane that's rather close.
11:06In this case, it was a small airplane that was rather close.
11:09But unless you're trained to look for that, now most commercial pilots, most military pilots
11:14are trained to gauge distances based on that sort of thing.
11:17It's much more of an art than it is a science, trust me on that.
11:22There's just points where you have to be able to either look out over the ground and see where
11:25you think they are or gauge what size airplane they are.
11:29But remember, they haven't been told that this airplane's coming.
11:32So it's very likely that nobody looked out at all.
11:36That's the problem with the two different frequencies and the poor visibility that was
11:41at LaGuardia last night and the rain slicked runway.
11:44Now, let me discuss runway four because I talked to you about that just a minute ago.
11:49Runway four and runway 22 at LaGuardia are interesting.
11:52And the same thing as on the approach end of runway 13, the rollout end of runway four
11:58or the approach end of runway 22 is a pier that's built out over the water.
12:04So when I was a new pilot at LaGuardia, I had an old captain say to me, hey, Steve, pay
12:10attention
12:11at LaGuardia because when you roll out on runway four, the last half of that runway is a pier
12:17that's built out over the water and it will freeze up.
12:20It'll ice up.
12:21It'll get slick prior to the rest of the runway.
12:24And sometimes even on a dry day, the rollout end of runway four will get slick.
12:30Why? Because there's moisture underneath of it and the moisture is coming up over the
12:34top of the runway.
12:35And so it gets super cool.
12:36Think when you're driving down the road and you see that sign that says bridge freezes
12:41before road and you kind of scratch your head and you say, what does that mean?
12:44It means that the bridge is going to freeze up before the road surface does.
12:48So the road surface might be fine, but because there's airflow underneath of the bridge and
12:53think of the end of runway four as a bridge, it's going to freeze up.
12:57It's going to become much slicker and harder to stop.
13:00So the advice to me back in those days and the advice to all my buddies and pilots that
13:04are flying in and out of LaGuardia is pay attention to the rollout end of runway four because it's
13:09going to get slick down there.
13:10And if you think you need to honk on the brakes at the last minute, you might not get the
13:13braking action that you think you're going to get.
13:16Now, having said that, they never got close to that.
13:18They never got all the way down there.
13:20Why? Because they struck these guys at Delta.
13:22And like I said, Delta is like a little bit more than a third of the way down runway four.
13:27Had they gone a little bit farther, they would have been out over that pier.
13:30And then the braking action would have been a factor as well.
13:33So there's a little bit of discussion or information about what goes on at LaGuardia.
13:38All right.
13:38Now, this is a tragedy on every different level.
13:43We won't know until the preliminary report comes up exactly who is to blame at this.
13:48And there might not even be any blame assessed there at that point.
13:51I'm going to try not to point fingers at anybody.
13:54I'm going to say this is really complicated.
13:55Hats off to the controller who kept his wits about him.
13:59He tells Delta right behind Jazz to go around.
14:03He follows up with another go around call because they didn't get it the first time.
14:06Again, this is the sort of thing where your heart is pounding.
14:09You can hear his voice elevated as he's talking to Jazz.
14:13He's talking to the fire truck.
14:14He's talking to Delta and he keeps his his wits about him to keep managing the airport because there's other
14:21airplanes coming in while at the same time they're busy closing the airport so that they can get the other
14:27fire trucks out there to on scene and hopefully save lives.
14:32And so he keeps his wits about him, but at the same time, there's that nagging thought in the back
14:38of your mind, did I did I make a mistake that I blow it?
14:42Well, you know what, it's just like a football game or something else.
14:45You know what, you got to stay in the moment.
14:47Eight seconds ago was eight seconds ago.
14:49Keep your wits about you.
14:51Keep managing the airport.
14:52Don't make a secondary issue out of a primary issue.
14:55And so again, the tapes will all be pulled.
14:58Everybody will go back and review this.
15:00They'll pull the cockpit voice recorder, find out what the conversation was like in the cockpit.
15:04We don't have any of that information at this point.
15:07All we know is that Jazz was cleared to land.
15:09There was nothing wrong with the aircraft.
15:11They would come in and land normally at LaGuardia.
15:15It looks like they touched down in the normal space that they were allotted to land down, touch down in.
15:19They're rolling out.
15:20Would they have seen the pickup truck before they landed?
15:23Probably not, because that, or not pickup truck, but the fire truck, would they have seen that before they landed?
15:29The fire truck probably wasn't even on the runway yet.
15:31And if it was, it would blend in with all the other lights on the runway.
15:35From that distance, you wouldn't be able to tell until you got right up on that fire truck, which they
15:41did.
15:42And again, if there's any more information that comes out, we'll relay that to you as soon as we get
15:48it here at this channel.
15:49Now, if you're wondering to yourself, gee, it seems like there's been so many incidents recently in aviation and especially
15:58at LaGuardia.
15:59Well, let's talk about what the facts are.
16:01The last time there was a fatality at LaGuardia was in 1992.
16:06I had just been hired as a pilot by my airline, and that was the first base that I was
16:11assigned to.
16:11I spent most of my career at LaGuardia as a pilot, but as a brand new pilot, I was given
16:18a lot of advice and a lot of recommendations about LaGuardia.
16:21But three months into getting hired at my airline, there was an accident with U.S. Air.
16:27It was the U.S. Air Flight 406.
16:31Twenty-seven people were killed.
16:33It was a Fokker F-28.
16:35It was on a takeoff roll on runway 13.
16:38It departed the runway.
16:39It went off over the embankment into Flushing Bay.
16:42It's a miracle that only twenty-seven people were killed.
16:45I'll show you a picture here of the wreckage of that flight, because this is the next day as they're
16:53pulling wreckage out of Flushing Bay.
16:56You can see extensive damage on that aircraft back from 1992.
17:00It's amazing, again, that so few people were killed on that.
17:04The really ironic part of all this was that last night's accident was March 22nd, 2026.
17:12The last time there was a fatality at LaGuardia was March 22nd, 1992, exactly 34 years to the day.
17:22I mean, that's hard to wrestle with, but our hearts go out to the captain and the first officer and
17:32their families.
17:32There's a lot of people that are really heartbroken tonight over this.
17:37Our prayers here at this channel is that nobody else dies as a result of this accident.
17:41There are several serious injuries as a result of it, and again, the investigation will be ongoing to find out
17:48exactly what led up to this tragic accident.
17:51But as we know it, weather was a factor last night at LaGuardia, two different frequencies talking to two different
17:59vehicles, one a firetruck, one an aircraft.
18:02They didn't hear what was going on with the other.
18:05And then that just see and avoid doctrine of looking out and seeing what's going on, all of that was
18:10hampered by the rain, the mist, and the low visibility last night at LaGuardia.
18:15The air traffic controller kept his wits about him and kept everything else moving.
18:20But wow, this is really hard and it's really tragic.
18:23So our prayers go out to their families.
18:25We're going to ask you to do the same.
18:27Please pray for these people.
18:29This is hard stuff for them.
18:31It's as hard as it gets.
18:34Well, now you know.
18:36I'm Captain Steve.
18:37We're going to ask you to do the same thing.
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