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Air Canada Express Jet Collides with Fire Truck at LaGuardia, Killing Pilots

Air Canada Express Jet Collides with Fire Truck at LaGuardia, Killing Pilots
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An Air Canada Express jet carrying 76 people collided with an emergency fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday, killing the pilot and co-pilot and forcing the busy hub to close for most of Monday, officials said bbc +1. At least several other people, including first responders and passengers, were injured in what New York authorities described as a mass-casualty event nypost +1.

The Bombardier CRJ-900, operating as Flight 8646 from Montreal for Air Canada Express, struck a Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle on Runway 4 at around 11:40 p.m. ET as it landed and rolled out, according to airport officials and flight-tracking data bbc +2. Images from the scene showed the jet’s nose section crushed and partially sheared off and the emergency vehicle badly damaged, surrounded by fire and rescue crews under floodlights bbc +1.

How the Runway Collision Unfolded

Preliminary recordings from air traffic control captured a controller urgently telling the fire truck, “Truck One, stop, stop, stop!” seconds before the collision, followed by a message to the cockpit: “JAZZ 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position… Vehicles are responding to you now,” CNN reported nypost. The Port Authority said the firefighting truck had been responding to a separate incident elsewhere on the airfield when it moved onto the active runway bbc +1.

A preliminary manifest from Jazz Aviation, which operates Air Canada Express, listed 72 passengers and four crew members on board cbsnews. ABC News reported that 13 people were taken to hospitals – 11 passengers and two first responders – while other outlets cited lower or still-undetermined injury totals, underscoring the fluid nature of early casualty counts cbsnews +1. Port Authority officials said emergency protocols “were immediately activated,” bringing in FDNY, NYPD and multiple airport units within minutes nypost +1.

A Shut-Down Airport and Renewed Safety Scrutiny

The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a ground stop and closed LaGuardia shortly after the crash, initially expecting operations to remain suspended until at least 2 p.m. ET Monday, with dozens of arriving flights diverted or turned back bbc +1. New York City’s emergency management office warned travelers to expect cancellations, traffic disruptions and a heavy emergency-services presence around the Queens airport theguardian. LaGuardia handled more than 30 million passengers in 2025, making any extended closure a significant disruption across the region’s tightly packed airspace bbc.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a “go team,” with Chair Jennifer Homendy expected to brief the public from the scene, while the FAA and Port Authority launched parallel probes cbsnews. Investigators are set to examine how an emergency vehicle came to be on an active runway as a passenger jet landed, including the sequence of clearances, vehicle-movement logs, cockpit and tower recordings, and conflicting early readings of the jet’s ground speed from online flight-tracking data cited by various outlets bbc +2. Recent taxiway collisions and near-misses at LaGuardia have already placed its ground operations under federal scrutiny nbcnewyork +1.

Looking Ahead

The LaGuardia crash raised immediate questions about runway-incursion defenses at one of the country’s most congested airports, from how emergency vehicles are dispatched to whether controllers and drivers had clear, unambiguous instructions. As investigators work to reconstruct the final seconds before impact and confirm the full toll of deaths and injuries, the findings are likely to reverberate beyond New York, shaping how airports nationwide manage the split-second balance between responding to emergencies and protecting aircraft still moving on the runway.