Moments before an Air Canada Express plane collided with a fire truck on the runway of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, a traffic controller cleared the truck to cross the runway and then urgently ordered it to halt, a recording showed.
The collision yesterday killed the pilot and co-pilot, and 41 people on board were taken to the hospital, officials said.
The plane, operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of Air Canada, struck the fire truck on Runway four at around 11.40pm local time as the truck drove to a separate incident.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Driver: “Truck one and company, LaGuardia Tower. Requesting to cross four at Delta.”
Controller: “Truck one and company, cross four at Delta”.
Driver: “Truck one and company crossing four at Delta”.
Controller: “Frontier 4195, stop there please. (Pause.) Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, stop, stop. Stop, truck one, stop! Stop, truck one, stop.”
(Alarm goes off.)
“Jazz 646. Jazz 646, I see you collided with vehicle. (Inaudible) Hold position. I know he can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”
After further dialogue.
Second controller: “Man, that wasn’t good to watch”.
First controller: “Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my staff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Second controller: “No man, you did the best you could”.
-Agence France-Presse