Two people have died after an Air Canada plane struck a fire truck while landing at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, one of the busiest airports in the United States, reports News agencies.
Authorities are now investigating the cause of the collision, including whether air traffic control coordination may have played a role.
What happened at LaGuardia Airport?
The CRJ-900 aircraft, operated by Jazz Aviation as Air Canada Flight AC8646 from Montreal, was landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York with 72 passengers and four crew members on board.
Minutes before the crash, a Port Authority fire truck was responding to a United Airlines flight that had reported an odour on board.
At approximately 11:40pm on Sunday (03:40 GMT on Monday), the Air Canada aircraft collided with the fire truck on the runway while landing.
Audio recordings reveal that an air traffic controller had initially cleared the truck to cross the runway, but as the Air Canada jet approached, the controller urgently tried to stop the vehicle, repeatedly shouting, “Truck One, stop, stop, stop!” in the seconds before the crash.
According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the aircraft struck the truck at about 39km/h (24mph). The site last recorded the plane’s data at 11:37pm on Sunday (03:37 GMT on Monday).
