LaGuardia is temporarily closed after Air Canada Express jet collides with fire truck

An Air Canada Express regional jet’s pilot and co-pilot died late Sunday after the aircraft and a Port Authority fire truck collided on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, officials said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said two Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting officers aboard the truck were among the injured, with 39 people from the jet also brought to hospitals — 41 hospitalizations in total. Of those, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said Monday morning that about 32 had been discharged, with some cases still categorized as serious.

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The Jazz Aviation-operated service — Air Canada Flight 8646, carrying 72 passengers and four crew — had arrived from Montreal, touching down around 11:40 p.m. Flight tracking data from Flight Radar 24 placed the aircraft’s speed at about 104 miles per hour at the moment of impact, according to CNN. Footage from the scene captured the front of the aircraft crushed and displaced upward, the fuselage resting on the runway. A source told CBS News the collision appeared to be an accident, with no foul play or terrorism suspected.

LaGuardia was shut down after the collision. The FAA placed the airport under a ground stop through at least 2 p.m.

According to CBS News, a controller gave the rescue vehicle permission to cross the runway — and only attempted to wave it off after the clearance had already been issued, recordings showed. Controllers were already stretched at the time: a United Airlines Flight 2384 crew had called off their departure after an anti-ice system warning, then escalated to a full emergency after detecting a cabin odor, sick flight attendants, and no available gate.

Jack Cabot, a New York resident who was aboard the flight, described the moment of impact to CNN. “We went down for a regular landing; we came in pretty hard. We immediately hit something and it was just chaos in there,” he said. With the cockpit destroyed, passengers received no crew instructions. “Somebody said, let’s get the emergency exit and get the door and let’s all jump out — and that’s exactly what we did,” Cabot said.

Garcia confirmed that NTSB investigators had begun arriving at the airport, with the board activating a full response team led by Chair Jennifer Homendy. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada also deployed investigators to the scene. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA was sending additional personnel to support the probe.

The investigation will look at how the rescue vehicle ended up on an active runway during a plane’s arrival and whether the controller on duty was working alone in the tower at the time.

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