Pilot safety concerns about New York’s LaGuardia airport were filed to aviation officials months before Sunday’s collision between an airplane and a fire truck left two pilots dead and 41 other people hospitalised, according to Nasa reports.
In one report from the summer, a pilot wrote: “Please do something,” after air traffic controllers failed to provide appropriate guidance about multiple nearby aircraft. “The pace of operations is building in LGA,” they said, adding that “the controllers are pushing the line.” The pilot compared the situation to the January 2025 mid-air collision over the Potomac River in Washington DC that killed more than 60 people.
The pilot described how a takeoff clearance was given for an aircraft when their plane was “only 300 feet high on final” approach on a different runway, and the departing plane had hesitated. They noted that thick, smoky haze from Canadian wildfires and a possible helicopter convinced them it was “safer to continue the approach and land about 10 seconds after the departing aircraft crossed our path”.
In another report since January 2025, a pilot said their aircraft had been cleared to cross a runway but “we noticed an aircraft we thought was landing at runway 31C seemingly headed for us”. They said air traffic control “should have sent the aircraft around”.
The reports come as investigators examine the collision of an Air Canada Express flight from Montreal with an airport firetruck that had been cleared to cross the runway. The crash killed pilots MacKenzie Gunther and Antoine Forest and injured dozens. The air traffic controller initially cleared the fire truck, then tried to stop it, later saying on a recording that he “messed up”.
Aviation expert Brian Fielkow said: “We did not need another aviation tragedy to see this coming. We are watching a system under strain.” Airports have faced a shortage of air traffic controllers, exacerbated by federal government personnel cuts and a partial government shutdown since mid-February, which has led to more than 450 TSA officers quitting.
