Ground Collision between fire truck and Air Canada Express CRJ regional Jet – LaGuardia NY.
The controller at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, cleared a Fire Truck, which was responding to an emergency elsewhere on the airport, to cross Runway 04 at the same time that the regional jet was landing. The resulting collision killed both pilots on the CRJ, as the front section of the jet was destroyed. Digital tracking indicates that the CRJ may have been travelling at over 100mph at the time. At time of writing there is little information regarding other casualties and the condition of the fire crew.
I identify with this crew as I flew a regional jet of a similar type and being a relatively small aircraft, the pilots were especially vulnerable in this instance. A larger jet would have had a cockpit much higher up, probably above the level of the vehicle involved in the collision and so a far greater chance of survival.
This appears initially to be the accident that many have said was waiting to happen at a US airport, with runway incursions seeing an increase over the last year or so. The tragedy of this crash is that it appears to be another example of an Air Traffic Control system in the USA that is in crisis and has been for a very long time. The recording of the transmissions seems to indicate the controller making a mistake in clearing the vehicle onto a runway with an aircraft in conflict with it and it must be an awful situation for him but we need to understand why an experienced controller could make such a catastrophic error.
Right now, all comment on this element is conjecture, as we do not know the staffing level on duty at the time, the amount of time this controller had worked, how much rest he had prior to the crash and a whole host of other possible contributory factors but one fact remains and that is the state of US ATC.
I first wrote about unacceptable levels of commercial pressure and the culture in the industry in the USA around 20 years ago and I am far from alone in being concerned about it, yet nothing has changed in that time. My book has a chapter of ATC generally and many of the examples of how not to do it are based in America. The wealthiest nation on earth, with technology that leads the world, and yet we have seen cultural issues create preventable accidents, even in the space programme.
American airports always left me with the feeling that the system was based on trying to get a Quart into a Pint pot and this was demonstrated, recently by the fatality at Ronald Regan Airport Washington in January 2025. A system in place that was high risk from the outset and it demonstrated a serious problem with priorities. Safety margins that are inconvenient can be reduced.
Sadly, this principle seems to apply far too widely in the USA. The controllers are also victims of this culture as they are expected to operate in unacceptable conditions. This tragedy would be a very rare event in major European or UK airports, simply because generally, safety rules are still paramount and not subjected to the same degree of commercial pressure. There have been some notable exceptions and again I have written about these in my book. In the present atmosphere in America, with chaotic oversight and an even bigger focus on cost, it is hard to imagine any change in the near future.