A shocking new report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has uncovered a critical flaw, among several other failures, that may have prevented the deadly crash last month at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The preliminary findings regarding the Air Canada Express plane crash, which left two people dead and dozens injured after the aircraft struck a fire truck that had been cleared to cross a runway, are still subject to change, according to the NTSB's report.
Key Findings from the NTSB Report
The board found that the fire truck 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. '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,' reads the report. 'As a result, 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 struck by the plane, was one of seven vehicles that were not equipped with transponders and were responding to a United Airlines flight reporting a strange odor.
Air Traffic Control and Sequence of Events
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. 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 130 feet 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 fire truck told the 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.
Runway Lights and Other Factors
Additionally, the runway's red entrance lights may have been a factor in the incident as well. 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.'
Victims and Survivors
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.
