An audio recording from the Air Canada Express jet that collided with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport has exposed a series of mistakes leading to the fatal crash. The two pilots, Captain Antoine Forest and First Officer Mackenzie Gunther, died when their Bombardier CRJ-900 struck a Port Authority vehicle on Runway 4 on Sunday night.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder by cutting into the wreckage on Monday. Chair Jennifer Homendy outlined a timeline on Tuesday, revealing that one air traffic controller had cleared the truck to cross the runway while another had authorised the flight to land on the same strip.
The truck, responding to an emergency on another aircraft, was not equipped with a transponder that could have triggered an alert. Homendy noted that a radio transmission from the vehicle was missed because another user was on the same frequency at the critical moment.
Instructions to “stop, stop, stop” went unheeded as the plane was just feet from touchdown. A controller admitted, “I messed up.” The NTSB is fully transcribing the 25-hour audio, but early analysis shows the flight had secured landing permission and completed its checklist before the collision.
Of the 41 people injured on board, most have been discharged from hospital. The two occupants of the fire truck suffered broken limbs and are in a stable condition.
