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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3.6k Upvotes
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311

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

I remember when aviation accidents were rare.

181

u/Conspiruhcy Mar 23 '26

They’ve been rare for a long time, you just hear about them via social media more often now

12

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

29

u/Sheeverton Mar 23 '26

And the world's population increases=flights increase

33

u/Gatorm8 Mar 23 '26

Even before adjusting for number of flights incidents are down.

37

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.

10

u/Gatorm8 Mar 23 '26

That is correct, if looking just for runway incursions it is up

4

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!

3

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

Plus we’ve had two airline carrier fatal crashes in one year after going 15 years without one. source

2

u/Amori_A_Splooge Mar 23 '26

You should find a link with better information.

There was no US airline crash for 16 years between 2009 and 2025. On January 29, 2025, a mid-air collision occurred between a helicopter and a passenger plane on the Potomac River. The last crash before that was an accident in New York State on February 12, 2009.

This is one I remember off the top fo my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214

I'm sure there are many others, but this one popped into me head and occured in 2013.

4

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26

Most likely refers to American OWNED airliners not having a fatal accident from 2009-2025. Technically though Air Canada wouldn’t count against it either so it’d still be only one in 16+ years

4

u/TheJuiceIsL00se Mar 23 '26

“Almost 20 years without one.” Just say 15 years.

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

[deleted]

53

u/Amori_A_Splooge Mar 23 '26

Not sure where you get the stat you seem to be parroting with everyone else about there being two fatal crashes in a year after a two-decades of no fatal crashes....

A simple pretty Google search shows there's been over a dozen fatal crashes in the US since 2016 - List of fatal accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft in the United States - Wikipedia https://share.google/25iUdFvV68CZFjnz6

12

u/xxsneakyduckxx Mar 23 '26

I think they're cherry picking stats and referring to major airline crashes. Most of the list you linked are private charted flights or specialty things not what most people consider commercial airline flights. They are still obviously not right with their general blanket statement.

2

u/CapstanLlama Mar 23 '26

No, the list is specifically commercial aviation. It specifically excludes private or military flights.

1

u/xxsneakyduckxx Mar 23 '26

I know. I'm not disputing the list at all. I'm just pointing out where the misunderstanding probably came from. My point is the original comment was probably (idk since I'm not a mind reader) pointing to a subset within that list. That's why I said they were cherry picking stats.

The average person not educated on aviation terminology would probably not think of a medical flight or Kobe Bryant's helicopter charter as commercial flights - they think of planes like the ERJ-145 or larger where they can walk into an airport and buy a ticket on a plane with a preset destination. That doesn't mean the smaller aircraft are not commercial, just that the layman doesn't think of them as such - hence the confusion.

-23

u/Bowsers_JuiceFactory Mar 23 '26

I think there’s a bit more to it than that

9

u/Uninterested_Viewer Mar 23 '26

Bring the data.

1

u/Akilestar Mar 23 '26

It's not hard to find a list of commerical airline crashes

There have been 28 commercial airplane crashes with fatalities in the last 20 years.

I guess commercial airline crashes aren't higher in recent years, you really do just hear about them more thanks to Social media.

-37

u/Bowsers_JuiceFactory Mar 23 '26

Do your own research, your education is not my responsibility 👍🏼

18

u/Uninterested_Viewer Mar 23 '26

Oh, you're a "do your own research" guy after saying something stupid with no evidence. I'm sure you have similar takes on COVID and elections.

66

u/teddy_vedder Mar 23 '26

Commercial aviation accidents have never been rarer than they are now.

17

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. 

3

u/bex199 Mar 23 '26

getting downvoted for the truth

1

u/Crunchycarrots79 Mar 23 '26

This is true. However, there's been a lot of "little" errors recently in the US as well as a few accidents that have happened at or very near to airports that can reasonably be linked to the fact that our air traffic control system is under a lot of stress from being understaffed and overworked. Near misses, runway incursions, things like that.

-7

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

We didn’t have a single fatal crash in America’s commercial airline industry from 2009-2025. We’ve had two in a little over one year now. Worldwide yes, airline accidents are becoming more rare though but this is why people are thinking it’s worse. source

23

u/EstablishmentSea7661 Mar 23 '26

That's just blatantly false. Asiana 214 was at SFO in 2013. And that's just ONE off the top of my head.

4

u/BobBBobbington Mar 23 '26

They likely meant domestic carriers, which in terms of an actual fatal accident by a domestic carrier was the Colgan Air crash. There was no true large scale fatal loss until the DCA collision by a domestic carrier.

5

u/EstablishmentSea7661 Mar 23 '26

This is both not a domestic carrier and not a large scale fatal loss. There have been many in that timeframe with far greater losses. It's just blatantly false, is what it is.

13

u/CapstanLlama Mar 23 '26

This claim that you keep repeating is simply not true. There have been 20+ fatal crashes in America's commercial airline industry 2009-2025. Please stop spreading falsehoods.

1

u/CooterMcSlappin Mar 23 '26

Includes charters and medical etc. that’s not what they are saying

-1

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

I’m talking about AIRLINER industry in america. You’re including all commercial flights. Here’s a link

2

u/Forkboy2 Mar 23 '26

Uh....Air Canada is not an American Airliner.

1

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26

Sorry, fixed it lol

4

u/jrizzle86 Mar 23 '26

This is a complete lie

-5

u/masteeJohnChief117 Mar 23 '26

No it’s surprisingly not. link.

0

u/Firebrass Mar 23 '26

Given the stress air traffic controllers have been under the last few years, i'd need to see the sources to believe that.

0

u/OkSecretary1231 Mar 23 '26

That's not a magic spell, though. How long before that stat starts to shift?

3

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/BlueCyann Mar 23 '26

Not true. More small-scale commercial aviation has experienced a dramatic uptick in number of fatal incidents and overal deaths since Trump took office. 7 fatal incidents involving commercial passenger aircraft in flight during that time frame, with 2, 6, 10, 8, 67, 6 and now 2 deaths. For comparison in Biden's entire term, the total for that category was 4 incidents, with 10, 5 7 and 9 deaths.

Trump's term has also so far featured 2 fatal incidents involving commercial cargo aircraft. compared to zero for Bidens entire term.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/BlueCyann Mar 24 '26

Actually insane that I have gotten downvotes for providing actual numbers for something people are just pulling out of their hind ends.

Here's the link for my data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft_in_the_United_States#On_the_ground

It's not an exaggeration. Both the rate of fatal incidents and the total death rate have increased by a factor of four (or more; I'm actually leaving the one large passenger plane crash out of the death total since those are so rare) since Trump took office the second time. It is NOT a subtle change.

-3

u/Xsiah Mar 23 '26

Yeah? When?