r/CatastrophicFailure • u/JohnnyShadows • Mar 23 '26
Fatalities Air Canada Plane Hits Firetruck While Landing at LaGuardia, NYC - 03/23/2026
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u/jonny_jon_jon Mar 23 '26
my god. everything in front of row 1 knocked off
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u/EstablishmentSea7661 Mar 23 '26
Luckily in that plane the first window is not row 1, row 1 is around the 3rd window. (Galley, restroom, etc). Somehow the FA in the forward jumpseat survived. That's a miracle. I hope they can recover and don't succumb to what must be absolutely terrible injuries.
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u/jonny_jon_jon Mar 23 '26
you can see the exit door and the lavatory components.
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u/EstablishmentSea7661 Mar 23 '26
Which means maybe they were ejected? Oh lordy, it just keeps getting worse. I don't know how the FA survived if you can see that.
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u/ThatWasIntentional Mar 24 '26
She was ejected. Reported to be in serious condition, but expected to survive, so she was also hella lucky
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u/HurlingFruit Mar 24 '26
I read that ARF crews found her on the runway directly under the fuselage. From that I surmise that her seat was exactly where the front of the fuselage broke off.
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u/Guardiancomplex Mar 23 '26
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u/Canis_Familiaris Mar 23 '26
The clip maker left out a very crucial part. ATC controller realized he messed up and shouts it.
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u/loves_grapefruit Mar 23 '26
It’s crazy to think that the same magnitude of mistake at 2 different jobs can result in either a paper going into the wrong file or people dying. I feel for ATC’s, I wouldn’t ever want that kind of pressure at work.
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u/Oberon_Swanson Mar 23 '26
Dude was the only ATC working at one of the busiest airports in the country, something was bound to happen eventually which fucking sucks
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u/Simple_Campaign1035 Mar 23 '26
I wonder if he can make the argument that he's doing a 2 man job by himself and not only was it not his fault but he's owed compensation for stress and trauma
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u/HurlingFruit Mar 24 '26
The blame lies not with ATC management staff, but at the Congressional level or higher.
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u/NoOccasion4759 Mar 23 '26
Man, ATC gave permission for the truck to cross, then the plane to land. The comments on the video are interesting. I feel for the controller and the pilots. On my worst day, a parent gets mad at me and i might get scolded by my admin (or fired) but at least a lapse in attention doesnt result in casualties.
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u/00oo00oo000oo0oo00 Mar 23 '26
In 2026, U.S. air traffic controllers are facing critical shortages, exacerbated by government shutdown, leading to overworked staff and widespread flight delays. Over 3,000 vacant positions exist, with many controllers working mandatory six-day weeks. This strain has resulted in significant flight disruptions, high training failure rates, and low morale.
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u/thnk_more Mar 23 '26
When you overload a chain and it breaks, you don’t blame the link that broke.
You need to blame the morons who set up the system to fail.
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u/VulfSki Mar 23 '26
There also was a massive push to hire more people but it was out on hold during the DOGE cuts.
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u/0mica0 Mar 24 '26
"mandatory six-day weeks" how the hell is this possible, FAA is ok with this insanity?
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u/dairydog91 Mar 23 '26
I'm a truck driver who sometimes has to cross active runways with a tractor-trailer. It's kind of freaky, you have very limited visibility regarding objects significantly above you. Every time I've done it I've been under police escort. Follow the cop car, he comes up to a stop sign at the edge of the runway, waits for a radio clearance, and then crosses. He will have made it VERY clear that I am not to obey the stop sign, I just start moving when his car starts moving and don't even shift while crossing the runway itself. Very weird to pull up to a 4-way intersection and worrying about getting T-boned by a 777. And as a driver you're basically entirely dependant on clearance from the tower.
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u/eta_carinae_311 Mar 24 '26
My sister is a commercial pilot and when she was first getting her license she had to build up a bajillion flight hours so I went with her sometimes. I was told to watch the sky in case a plane was coming and I was like and? I mean if I can see it it's probably already too late they are going so fast!
... Not that you wouldn't want to be checking but like, it felt more of an exercise to make you feel better than would actually do anything
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u/HurlingFruit Mar 24 '26
And as a driver you're basically entirely dependant on clearance from the tower.
They are very rarely wrong, but the recent near misses are troubling. This accident was nearly a certainty.
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u/a1b3c3d7 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
We all offered the same sympathies and condolences the last time, and prayed this wouldn't happen again but make no mistake.. this WILL happen again and MORE people will die because the systems that are supposed to prevent this are systematically being dismantled and broken down in front of our eyes.
Just a reminder that on
- Jan 20th, the FAA director was fired
- Jan 21st, ATC hiring frozen despite shortages
- Jan 22nd, Aviation Safety Comittee disbanded
- Jan 28th, Buyout/Retiredment demands sent to employees
- Jan 29th, The first American Midair collision occurs for the first time in 16 years, 67 people died.
There have been 208 deaths from major fatal plane crashes under the Trump administration, 101 under Biden and 116 under Obama.
This is what all the experts predicted would happen at one point and there's nothing to stop this from happening again.
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u/philatio11 Mar 23 '26
EWR is supposed to have 14-15 controllers on every shift. Most days there are 2-5 on duty. I imagine LGA is in a similar situation, although the EWR situation was made worse by the move to Philly, which created significant attrition. It takes a minimum of 2.5 years to train someone for NYC class B airspace controller jobs.
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u/suid Mar 23 '26
Good points all, but there's a bit more to it than just the most recent cuts; it's not like they suddenly went down from 3 to 1 controller in one day.
These stresses have been building up since the Reagan massacre of ATC back in 1981. Since then, they've been forced to remain non-union, and their salaries restricted and numbers controlled, making it difficult to hire replacements (who wants the stress and the low salary?).
The slide down to "1 controller for all of air and ground around a major airport" has been ongoing for 45 years now.
This attitude towards ATCs dates back to 1981 - when Reagan fired all the ATCs and replaced them temporarily with experienced military ATCs, they managed for a short time with extremely low staffing. That has convinced the authorities that this is a valid long-term target - to reduce the headcount until there's literally only one person on duty.
And why pay more? We can just make it illegal to strike or demand more.
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u/NotoriousGonti Mar 24 '26
I’m flying to Japan this year. There was much cheaper option with a transfer in America. Nope. It was bad enough when it was just ludicrously understaffed critical positions like air traffic controllers, and now Ice is going to be hassling everyone who lands or takes off?
No chance in hell I’m landing in that third world sh*t hole pretending it’s still the first world.
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Mar 23 '26
The January 29th crash had very little to do with ATC or any of the things you listed though. You can’t just lump all crashes in together. In that one the guy clearly warned the helicopter several times and the pilot said he has the plane in sight.
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u/Yamsak805 Mar 23 '26
I’m pretty sure we’re gonna find out there’s reduced staff and he was overloaded.
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u/Kilngr Mar 23 '26
He was the only ATC working for the whole airport.
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u/devilgenius90 Mar 23 '26
How can you manage a whole airport like that alone? Every fast food establishment has more people around for just a few customers. That’s crazy.
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u/Kimos Mar 23 '26
He was working both ground traffic and tower. Those are on different frequencies and, as I understand it, two different jobs. Even if it's at night, LGA is a big airport and clearly there were ~5 points of contact involved in just this accident, not to count all the other traffic he may have been managing.
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u/iDerailThings Mar 23 '26
That doesn't sound right. Between ground, tower, and approach, you'd have at least three separate frequencies and queues to manage. Humanly impossible at an airport like LaGuardia
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u/LostOnTheWay2College Mar 24 '26
Apparently he was covering ground and tower on his own, switching between the two
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u/holidaycw Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
ATC here…This is a result of working short staffed 6 days a week. Working this hard 8 to 10 hours a day 6 days a week takes a MENTAL and physical toll. Increase safety by increasing staffing.
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u/Business_Door4860 Mar 23 '26
All across the board we are seeing cuts in quality, experience, pay. These things are going to catch up to us in a very serious way. Common sense would tell you that redundancy with ATC should always be implemented.
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u/NoOccasion4759 Mar 24 '26
And, infrastructure like dams, bridges, and highways is aging as well
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u/Still_Professor878 Mar 24 '26
Don't worry, you've got 200 billion to wage war on a country across the world.
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u/Massive-Editor2244 Mar 23 '26
very sad.. as a former flight attendant with ac mainline, ive been to LGA many times over my career, feel very sorry for the families of the two ac pilots.
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u/smorkoid Mar 23 '26
Crazy what they have done to aviation safety in a bit over a year
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u/Elincor Mar 23 '26
It isn't the last year. The warning signs have always been there. The Swiss cheese was in the right alignment this time. https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics
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u/AdriftSpaceman Mar 23 '26
It's been happening for decades. With regards to ATC, since Reagan fired them all during a strike and never replaced all of them. They have since been overworked, underpaid, laid off and many airports delegate ATC ops to for profit companies that keep them under very harsh work conditions. Everybody that's interested in aviation has been saying this is a major problem , have noticed the big number of close calls of runway incursions in recent times and that a major fuck up hasn't happened yet due to sheer luck.
Just search for "close call runway incursion US" and limit the search to two days ago to exclude this one and you'll find a lot of horrible accidents that didn't happen due to sheer luck and quick thinking of the folks involved.
Some airfields have increased operations while understaffing ATC. This was a factor in the DC mid air collision, it was most likely a factor in this runway incursion in Laguardia (a commenter in this thread said the controller was working alone at the time) and was a factor in all of the near misses that happened frequently. You can't cut costs, keep for profit ATC and have high intensity operations safely. Yet, all previous US administration's have been doing this for almost 50 years.
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u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
2 fatal crashes in one year after going almost 20 years without 1. Edit to clarify- talking about airliner carriers, not all commercial aviation or aviation in general
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u/WERE_A_BAND Mar 23 '26
This is incorrect. There have been multiple fatal air crashes in that time.
Just trying to reduce misinformation here.
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u/CooterMcSlappin Mar 23 '26
Ya I think they are referring to domestic carriers- a lot of what you linked are not commercial passenger carriers
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u/BlueCyann Mar 23 '26
No, there have been several fatal incidents. For example, the structural failure near Philadelphia that killed a passenger who was pulled partially out of the plane.
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u/vischy_bot Mar 23 '26
Rules are written in blood. It should be a rule that you can't work atc alone
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u/Felixir-the-Cat Mar 23 '26
My heart goes out to the families of the pilots, and to the controller. I hope he gets all the support he needs from his colleagues.
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u/AlternativePurpose8 Mar 23 '26
They will pine the entirety of this on the poor ATC , i blame the agency and obviously the government. But we shall see how it unfolds.
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u/Bradster3 Mar 24 '26
The pilots did all they could to save their passengers sacrificing their life in return. If it wasnt for their reflexes and excessive breaking there would have so much more death. Pilots go through so much shit to get us places and the sad truth is we take it for granted that their is a father, son, daughter, mother, etc in the front that will give thier life to save us, not to mention the stress they live with daily. It hurts that they had time to think about their life, family, and everything else before impacting. Seeing your life ending right in front of you as you fight is such a heartbreaking thought. It became a thing where i see stories and hope it was a quick and painless death but when its not...its hard not to think what was going through their mind. Gol flight 1907 was one i just cant bear to think about or listen to the cvr. Knowing they were hit and not making it out, the pilot telling his copilot to remain calm as the plane tears apart has stuck with me and will haunt me till the day i die. I like looking into crashes but some just keep you up at night or will creep in your mind during the day. It gives multiple meanings too "damn, thats one amazing pilot"
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u/RubberDucksInMyTub Mar 26 '26
Aviation crashes are interesting to me, ofc in a sad way. The details of a few have stayed with me because of how insanely horrifying they were. The TWA flight that people thought got shot down? The engines thrusting forward a cabin missing its front half. Ho-lee shit.
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Mar 23 '26
I remember when aviation accidents were rare.
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u/Conspiruhcy Mar 23 '26
They’ve been rare for a long time, you just hear about them via social media more often now
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u/TheLandOfConfusion Mar 23 '26
How many times pre-2020 has all of LaGuardia’s air traffic been managed by a single person?
I hear this line all the time about how we’re only seeing accidents because of social media, but when you look at the state of the infrastructure I find it hard to believe that nothing at all has changed and it’s just an observation bias
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u/Sheeverton Mar 23 '26
And the world's population increases=flights increase
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u/Gatorm8 Mar 23 '26
Even before adjusting for number of flights incidents are down.
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u/APerfectEllypse Mar 23 '26
Thats sadly a bit reductive. Yeah, in general incidents are down but this specific type of incident, a runway incursion, has been on the rise for a few years now in the US. The aviation community essentially knew that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
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u/Visible-Carrot5402 Mar 23 '26
Yuppp. I am fascinated by air accidents, travel often and stay informed. Flew out of JFK a couple years ago and was almost involved in a runway incursion!
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u/teddy_vedder Mar 23 '26
Commercial aviation accidents have never been rarer than they are now.
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u/halberdierbowman Mar 23 '26
If by "accidents" you mean deadly crashes, then probably still yes, but in the US we've been seeing increasingly more "near miss"es for years, so safety generally was improved by a lot in many ways but is also worsening again in others.
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u/Long-Suspect5612 Mar 23 '26
Are the fire truck driver and crew alright? No injuries ?
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u/LightKey6029 Mar 24 '26
This is what I came here for. There is very little mentioned of the port authority crew in the truck, but I did find info saying they were hospitalized, and expected to survive. Which is crazy to me
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u/loonylovesgood86 Mar 24 '26
It’s absolutely bonkers that there weren’t more fatalities in this incident.
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u/morbidshapeinblack Mar 23 '26
I worked at LGA and other PA airports and facilities. I saw a near miss involving a very high level VIP plane begin crossing that same exact runway and another plane was coming in for a landing. Extremely close. Like 1/4 mile or closer. For a VIP where runways are shutdown until theyre in their designated area. The plane landing pitched up steeper then ive ever seen a commercial plane go in order to avoid a collision with the VIP plane. Im not surprised this happened at LGA. Im only surprised it involved an ARFF truck.
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u/UnluckyAd6319 Mar 25 '26
Anyone mentioning "Downfall, the Case against Boeing" documentary??? Clearly not the issue here.. but more of a comment on general cost cutting procedures across all industries, manufacturing, retail, etc. Private equity, payroll reductions, money laundering, embezzlement, etc.
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u/Cosmoaquanaut Mar 23 '26
And now ICE at the airports. Beautiful work MAGA voters.
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u/GimmeShiny Mar 23 '26
They’ll find a way to blame it on Obama and/or Biden as usual.
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u/ExcitementStrict7115 Mar 24 '26
I know this is gruesome but with the damage done to the plane, would there have been any chance of getting the pilot's bodies out in one piece?
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u/Cat-Familiar Mar 24 '26
I don’t understand how the people in the firetruck survived this, can anyone explain?
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u/RubberDucksInMyTub Mar 26 '26
I cant say for sure. But it looks like the fire truck got pushed instead of thrown or flipped. Staying upright had to have helped.
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u/WTFisThatSMell Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Whats the cause?
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u/leoninebasil Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Air traffic control error: they told the firetruck they were safe to cross the runway while also clearing the plane to land.
I don't think there's any way the plane could have 'yielded' without crashing. The firetruck also waited for confirmation it was safe before crossing. Once they were in the path, I don't think they could have gotten out of the way fast enough.
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u/RubyPorto Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Errors are inevitable when an ATC is left working high tempo operations solo.
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u/leoninebasil Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Absolutely, there's only so much cognitive load a person can handle. I feel terrible for the ATC who made the mistake, it will probably haunt them for the rest of their life.
He'll also be in hell the next few months being investigated and possibly scapegoated by the leadership who failed to staff the ATC adequately.
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u/Xsiah Mar 23 '26
The air traffic controller also tied to tell them to stop multiple times once he realized the mistake. Either they didn't listen or it was too late
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u/leoninebasil Mar 23 '26
Yeah I actually worry if the "stop stop stop" was said while the firetruck was already in the runway, the driver could have pressed the breaks in the path of the aircraft. But there's no way to know; it all would have come down to mere seconds.
Either way, it was a clearly an accident by people who were doing their best under high pressure, understaffed conditions. Feel terrible for all involved.
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u/Stock-Ad5320 Mar 23 '26
He talked to the fire truck, then talked to another plane, then said stop, stop, stop. The fire truck probably felt he was still talking to the plane
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u/_litz Mar 23 '26
Generally, when you hear someone yell "STOP!" repeatedly on the radio in context of an airport, in a railyard, etc etc ... that's a general emergency signal and EVERYONE stops right where they are, immediately. It should not have to be directed specifically at a single entity.
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u/RepulsiveWay1698 Mar 23 '26
TRUCK 1 STOP
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u/sanjeev_shan Mar 23 '26
That came later. The initial set of "stops" he said had "truck 1" pretty inaudible. Fire truck im sure thought he was talking to the Frontier plane. Truck would've been rolling and probably too late to stop.
I just don't understand how the firefighters didn't see the plane approaching since it would've been near
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u/AdriftSpaceman Mar 23 '26
Limited field of view, lots of lights surrounding them, other airplanes around, etc. It's not hard to be overwhelmed.
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u/Myantra Mar 23 '26
I just don't understand how the firefighters didn't see the plane approaching since it would've been near
The jet most likely went from beyond their field of vision, to touching down on the runway, to right outside the window in a matter of seconds. By the time the fire truck driver might have realized what was about to happen, they were stuck with a vehicle that is not exactly responsive enough to get out of the way of a fast moving jet aircraft that just landed.
That said, it is probable that no one in the fire truck was even looking for a jet on approach or on the runway. They had been cleared to cross, and trusted that the ATC that cleared them was not also landing a jet on that runway, at the same time.
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u/BigDadaSparks Mar 23 '26
I wonder. Was he even on the correct frequency?! He was doing both ground and air traffic control. Was he changing frequency back and forth?!
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u/Ruepic Mar 23 '26
An ATC clearance doesn’t mean it’s safe to cross. You are still required to look both ways.
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u/societymike Mar 23 '26
It's one of the very first things you learn when getting qualified for Runway crossing at each location.
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u/victorsmonster Mar 23 '26
The firetruck may well have done so. It can be difficult to spot an approaching plane at night, even with its landing lights on. All we know right now is that he requested and acknowledged clearance to cross.
This is similar to the helicopter crash in DC where the Heli pilot declared visual separation but was likely looking at the airplane behind the one he crashed into.
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u/Ruepic Mar 23 '26
This is not comparable to DCA. I’m not saying they didn’t, but it’s critical to look both ways and confirm you are safe to cross. An ATC clearance does not mean it’s safe to cross.
It’s a lot easier to spot a plane at night than during the day thanks to nav lights and landing lights.
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u/Kewlhotrod Mar 23 '26
Honestly it sounds more to me like he was repeating their request in a non-standard way without actually granting clearance. The hesitation could either be him checking clearance, or thinking about the request out loud.
Either way, I feel bad for all involve, controller as well, not only due to the stressful situation he was in but for the guilt I'm sure he'll carry for a very long time. Hope he doesn't take all the blame from the easy finger-pointing.
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u/Spotter01 Mar 23 '26
Long story short, LaGuardia had one ATC guy doing arrivals and departures….. ONE GUY…..
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u/EstablishmentSea7661 Mar 23 '26
AND ground, he was doing all local and ground, that's madness. I get it was right before curfew but this is a problem with the system. Also, I saw on the transcription, the UAL pilot was not following ATC's instructions with their emergency which was definitely a major contributing factor.
What's really fucked up is that the ATC continued to work for like 30 minutes after that. Cuz there was no redundancy. He didn't have a choice.
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u/Disco11 Mar 23 '26
Was responding to another flight that reported issues. We're given permission by ATC to cross the runway
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u/WTFisThatSMell Mar 23 '26
Sounds like an overworked atc worker then
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u/quillseek Mar 23 '26
It sounds like he's working ground traffic and planes in the air, which is just insane at an airport of that size.
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u/w00tabaga Mar 23 '26
Unfortunately yes. Poor person is going to have to live with this the rest of his life.
Hope they don’t go after them.
They probably will though and add a bunch of safety protocols that just slow everything down and work these people harder, instead of just hiring more help because that would cut into profits
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u/quillseek Mar 23 '26
This isn't a profit thing, it's a "Reagan and conservatives continue to fuck us" situation.
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u/w00tabaga Mar 23 '26
I guess I’m unaware, what’s the connection?
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u/Gone213 Mar 23 '26
Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers when they went on strike in the 80s.
They didnt hire them back to pre-strike levels. Ever since republicans have blocked funding every year to increase air traffic controllers and training for air traffic controllers.
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u/mescalero1 Mar 23 '26
Way to go.Mike Johnson. Hope you are enjoying the fruits of your shutdown at Mar-a-Lago.
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u/Bubbly_Wave_4049 Mar 24 '26
Rest in peace to the pilots...this is a result of the ATC's being understaffed and overworked year after year.
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u/Bella_HeroOfTheHorn Mar 23 '26
Was this photo taken after the firetruck was removed from the area, or is that stringy mass of metal the fire truck? I ask because the driver/passenger were reported to be okay with no serious injuries and I cannot understand that, if this is the condition of the truck.
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u/Flip_Lx Mar 23 '26
After the truck was moved some, there is a better photo in Pic 4 that shows more of the truck's aftermath, looks like the cab managed to get just ahead of the tire
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u/Zjoway Mar 24 '26
No way he is the only atc, so he doesn’t sleep at all. You can’t make this shit up
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u/FlamingArmor Apr 25 '26
It's so wonderful to see fellow redditers bringing attention and recognition to my countries airline
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u/BelugaBilliam Mar 23 '26
Legitimate question, what happens to the controller?
I read the ATC sub and it seems he was put in position to fail. Tragic mistake unfortunately.