A startling report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has spotlighted a critical oversight among several issues that might have averted last month’s fatal accident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
The preliminary investigation into the Air Canada Express crash, which resulted in two fatalities and numerous injuries after the plane collided with a firetruck authorized to cross the runway, is still ongoing and the details may evolve, according to the NTSB.
The report highlights that the firetruck lacked a transponder, which would have activated an automatic alert system had it been on a collision path with the aircraft.
“Without transponder-equipped vehicles, the ASDE-X system could not uniquely identify each of the seven responding vehicles or reliably determine their positions, or tracks,” the report states.
“Consequently, the system was unable to correlate the track of the airplane with the track of Truck 1 (or any of the other vehicles in the group) and did not predict a potential conflict with the landing airplane.”
Truck 1, which was hit by the aircraft, was part of a fleet of seven vehicles that lacked transponders and were responding to a United Airlines flight that had reported a peculiar odor.
That night, two air traffic controllers were working the night shift. One was a controller-in-charge with 19 years of experience, and the other was a local controller with roughly 18 years of experience.
According to the report, the local controller gave the Air Canada flight the go-ahead to land on the runway about 20 seconds before the emergency vehicles left an airport fire station.
National Transportation Safety Board released a report on Thursday revealing flaws that may have prevented the deadly crash in March at New York’s LaGuardia airport. An Air Canada Express plane crashed into a firetruck that was cleared to cross a runway, leaving two people dead and dozens injured
The fire truck was completely destroyed by the wreck, and the pilot and co-pilot in the Air Canada aircraft were killed
Truck 1 requested to cross the runway toward the United plane and was cleared by the local controller to do so.
The Air Canada flight was only 130ft in the air as the truck was given the clearance to cross.
About 20 seconds before the crash, the local controller began instructing the truck to stop, according to the report.
A crew member inside the firetruck told NTSB that he recalled hearing the controller pleading with them to ‘stop’ several times but did not realize the command was meant for them before entering the runway.
‘He further recalled that as they turned left, he saw the airplane’s lights on the runway,’ the report said.
Additionally, the runway’s red entrance lights may have been a factor in the incident as well.
Air Canada pilots Mackenzie Gunther, 30, (left) and Capt. Antoine Forest, 24, (right) were killed in the crash. Their bodies have since been repatriated to Canada
According to the report the firetruck was not equipped with a transponder that would have triggered an alert from an automatic system if its path was on a collision course with the aircraft
According to the report, the lights are designed to turn on if a runway is not clear.
However, the lights were on as the Air Canada plane reached the runway and remained lit ‘until about the time Truck 1 reached the (near) edge of the runway, when they extinguished, about three seconds prior to the collision.’
The pilots killed in the crash were named as MacKenzie Gunther, 30, and Antoine Forest, 24, described by officials as young and competent pilots ‘at the start of their careers.’
A total of 40 others were hospitalized by the crash, including flight attendant Solange Tremblay, who miraculously survived being thrown 330 feet from the crash while still strapped in her seat.
