Chilling footage has captured the moment an Air Canada aircraft collided with a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport.
Security cameras recorded the Air Canada Bombardier CRJ-900 as it touched down around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday night. At that precise time, a fire truck unexpectedly crossed its path.
Traveling at roughly 150 mph, the plane struck the fire truck amid heavy rainfall, resulting in a dramatic spray of water as the impact sent the truck tumbling across the runway.
Tragically, the incident claimed the lives of the aircraft’s pilot and co-pilot, while 41 others, including two individuals in the fire truck, were injured and taken to the hospital.
The release of the crash footage coincides with air traffic control audio emerging, in which personnel can be heard desperately urging the fire truck to “stop, stop, stop” in the critical moments leading up to the collision.
While the fire truck had been authorized to cross the runway to attend to an unrelated issue with another plane, it seems air traffic controllers recognized the impending disaster just seconds before the crash occurred.
‘Truck One, stop, stop, stop!’ an air traffic controller is heard saying, before addressing the plane seconds later: ‘JAZZ 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.’
Horrific footage has revealed the moment an Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck as it crossed a runway at LaGuardia Airport, sending a huge spray of water and debris across the tarmac as the truck was flipped
The pilot and co-pilot in the Air Canada aircraft were tragically killed in the crash and 41 other people were hospitalized
The audio from air traffic controllers then showed the dispatcher telling the Frontier crew that the runway would be closed, asking if they would like to return to the ramp.
‘We got stuff in progress for that man, that wasn’t good to watch,’ a Frontier pilot said.
‘Yeah, I tried to reach out to them. We were dealing with an emergency, and I messed up,’ the controller replied, before the Frontier pilot tries to reassure him, saying: ‘No, you did the best you could.’
There were 72 passengers and four crew members aboard the aircraft, and experts said the death toll could have been far higher if the truck had collided with the fuel stored on the plane.
Images from the tarmac after the incident showed the truck was destroyed in the collision, and the front nose of the aircraft exploded.
One of the 41 people who was hospitalized in the crash was a female flight attendant, who was ejected through the front of the jet while still strapped to her seat.
The crash resulted in LaGuardia grounding all flights as emergency crews raced to the scene.
The fire truck was completely destroyed by the wreck, and the pilot and co-pilot in the Air Canada aircraft were killed
The nose of the Air Canada aircraft was crushed in the collision
A terrified passenger shared shocking images of the damage to the aircraft
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash.
Sources told NBC News that the air traffic controller was working two positions at the time of the crash.
The identities of the pilots killed in the crash have not been announced, but officials said they were based out of Canada.
‘Sadly, the two pilots are confirmed deceased and notifications are being made by Air Canada’s care team at this time,’ said Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
‘We don’t have demographic information, but we do understand that they operated out of Canada as their locale.’
Jack Cabot, a passenger on the Air Canada jet, described the moment they made impact as ‘chaos’.
The Port Authority vehicle was turned on its side as several emergency responders flooded the runway
Cabot said the journey had been a ‘regular flight like always, but as we were arriving, we came down really hard.’
He said the hard landing saw the pilots ‘stop really quickly’ on the runway, before about two second later ‘there was just an absolute slam.’
‘Everybody was flying everywhere, the plane started veering off left and right,’ he told Fox News.
‘It was chaos, I mean it didn’t feel like there was anybody in control.’
