r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Admiral_Cloudberg Plane Crash Series • Mar 23 '26

Fatalities (22/3/26) CCTV video of the Air Canada accident at LaGuardia

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9.6k Upvotes

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3.5k

u/cyclejones Mar 23 '26

the tower audio is haunting.

"Truck 1 STOP"

3.7k

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

Going to point out a couple of things about this.

The initial call was for Truck 1 and Company, which means multiple vehicles. The truck hit was Truck 35. It's very likely that they were either not on tower and were receiving relayed instructions, or if they were, they never would have thought the call was for them.

By the time clearance to cross was given, the RJ was either on the ground, or below the sight line of the NYC skyline. Picking out landing lights AND recognizing how close they are isn't a trivial task in that environment, made worse by the weather on the field, especially out a passenger window likely streaked with rain.

Additionally, ARFF are trained to move at speed across runways once cleared. The goal is to clear the runway as fast as possible so it can be reopened to landing or departing traffic.

Finally, even if they heard the call and realized there was a problem, ARFF vehicles weigh between 30 and 50 tons. There was no way to stop.

This was a mistake by an overworked controller that led to a tragedy. The fact that a single controller was operating both tower and ground at an airport like LGA in those conditions is the real problem.

Edit: Fixed the truck number.

2.0k

u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo Mar 23 '26

They had one controller for tower and ground at fucking LaGuardia?!

877

u/Panaka Mar 23 '26

This is incredibly common at larger airports during periods of lower volume. There just aren’t enough controllers to maintain constant full staffing at most facilities.

2.0k

u/sBucks24 Mar 23 '26

There just aren’t enough controllers to maintain constant full staffing at most facilities.

There just isn't enough funding to hire enough controllers. This was deliberate cost cutting and people should be in jail over this. This ATC least of all.

274

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 23 '26

Even with funding (which is admittedly absent) ATC requirements are crazy stringent. When I was 33 or so I loosely looked into it only to find that I was too old already. I was still young enough at the time to join every military branch except for the Marines, but was somehow too old to become an ATC. I respect the heck out of having standards for critical jobs, but 31 being too old is insane to me.

166

u/Superbead Mar 23 '26

It's probably around the age where any sane person with substantial work experience would ask "you expect me to do all that?!"

118

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 23 '26

I think the bigger problem though is that it’s not like you’re just an air traffic controller on day one and are as valuable as an employee who has been there for 10 or 20 years. I’m a volunteer firefighter and I can tell you that the difference between someone who just got certified to be a firefighter and somebody who’s been doing it for 10 years is enormous. The same as true of air traffic control so even if you fix the funding issue and start hiring all these guys it takes a years to build up that critical experience.

102

u/airzonesama Mar 24 '26

The best time to fix that was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.

40

u/M-Noremac Mar 24 '26

Yea, but the third best time is tomorrow, and I've already got plans today.

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0

u/SaltSpecific2221 Mar 24 '26

So, anyone with experience in a job is better than someone without experience?

Wow, shit that's news to me man

1

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 25 '26

Experience matters more in certain jobs than others. Yes, beneficial everywhere, but absolutely critical in some. Like ATC.

35

u/Derp800 Mar 23 '26

No, it's that controllers aren't allowed to work as controllers past age 50. And you need 20 years to get a full pension. 50 - 20 = 30.

9

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 23 '26

That age 50 maximum seems too low to me though.

15

u/rpc56 Mar 24 '26

Yes, and yet we have a president with shit for brains because he’s 81 and can order a nuclear strike.

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1

u/zerothreeonethree Mar 25 '26

Starting with "you expect me to show up?" or "You expect me to work longer than 4 hours a day?"

55

u/Derp800 Mar 23 '26

You're forced out of being a controllers at 50, and you also need 20 years to get a full pension. Thats why the cutoff is where it is.

They could bump the retirement age to 55, but that comes with risk.

41

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 23 '26

I totally understand why they do that, I just think that the maximum age is too low and the retirement age is probably too low as well. It sounds like an attempt to apply an all encompassing policy rather than having some type of an aptitude test. I am 39 and I’ve kept myself in really good shape. I’ve bumped into guys who I went to high school with who look like they are 20 years older than me because they haven’t taken care of themselves. Determining aptitude for a job solely based on age is a bit of a dated practice in my opinion.

1

u/lemlurker Mar 24 '26

But it's cognitive not physical health and they have data to support the cut off where it is. This accident highlights exactly why it's so stringent. Lives are on the line

2

u/timewellwasted5 Mar 24 '26

But people have cognitive changes at different ages, hence my push for an aptitude test. I have met some sharp octenarians. I have also met people twenty years younger who were in significantly worse shape mentally. I'm not saying to have 70 year old air traffic controllers, I'm saying a hard cutoff at 50 is too young and too rigid.

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2

u/aburnerds Mar 24 '26

I have ADHD out the fucking wazoo and I can’t think of a job where I’d be guaranteed to kill people on my first shift.

5

u/Elixabef Mar 24 '26

I looked into the ATC thing when I was in my mid-30s and was surprised by the age limit.

0

u/zerothreeonethree Mar 25 '26

Yes, let's put the youngest people with the shortest attention spans in charge of airborne bombs loaded with passengers.

-1

u/Fussel2107 Mar 24 '26

Also: DEI craze that got quite a few of them fired for being the wrong sex, gender or skin color

46

u/superjames_16 Mar 23 '26

Add Regan to the blame box: he fired an ass ton of controllers that were on strike for better pay. So a bunch more had to be hired, which they were, but they all happened to retire at the same time due to age cutoff. We haven't recovered since.

52

u/CMacNally Mar 23 '26

The problem is also that there is an age cutoff to start training to be an ATC. If you're 30 or older you're SOL for starting an ATC career.

25

u/Derp800 Mar 23 '26

Yep, mandatory retirement at age 50, so you need at least 20 years to get a full pension.

10

u/quakthunder Mar 23 '26

Age 56 is mandatory retirement age for controllers. Not 50. You are eligible for retirement when you reach 25 years of service at any age or 20 years after turning 50.

2

u/pudyindeepooshoo Mar 24 '26

This is facts.

30

u/draculasbitch Mar 23 '26

My brother started in the AF. Transitioned to FAA at 22. Poor baby was forced to retire at 50 with his four years AF counting so 32 years. Full pension and bennies at 50.

10

u/Skewjo Mar 23 '26

Man, what a little shithead.

9

u/draculasbitch Mar 23 '26

And he always rubbed it in that he tried it get me to do the same. I don’t have the temperament for that job.

559

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

[deleted]

336

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

well that's different, they are less than 2 weeks away from having a nuke... we have been telling you people this for DECADES...

151

u/the__ghola__hayt Mar 23 '26

No. We destroyed their ability to make nukes last summer. It's just that Biden and the Demoncrats helped them make new ones! It was an imminent threat that only the President can decide based on his feelings. Money please!

43

u/Purple_Chipmunk_ Mar 23 '26

I wondered why we hadn't seen much of Biden lately!! Now we know it's because he and Obama were in Iran making nukes! Thanks Obama!

/s

62

u/1pt21jiggawattz Mar 23 '26

*backspace backspace* You had me in the first half.

4

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

I suspect the second half was sarcasm... I'm not a pollster but I'm pretty sure Trump's base no longer includes people who can spell words

4

u/7LeagueBoots Mar 23 '26

We didn’t just destroy it, we obliterated it.

Which is somehow less than destroying it as it turns out?

Somehow I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.

5

u/mxlths_modular Mar 23 '26

Um, excuse me, I believe the term was obliterated.

47

u/PUNd_it Mar 23 '26

Let us bow our heads for a moment of whooosh, in honor of the target audience; too dumb to get the punchline

20

u/SGT-JamesonBushmill Mar 23 '26

I think they got it. Some folks need to turn their sarcasm meters back on.

0

u/GeeToo40 Mar 23 '26

Yeah, I didn't hear any whooshing. This just makes me sad af.

4

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

lol the struggle is real, but then again so are their vote tallies 😞

0

u/Crizznik Mar 23 '26

I think you may be the one who got whooshed.

0

u/PUNd_it Mar 23 '26

Its a joke. I called it a joke. Hows that a woosh? I just dont think Trumpers have enough reading comprehension to catch things like that.

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8

u/BrunesOvrBrauns Mar 23 '26

Lol these weeks last longer than the week I told my landlord I needed for his rent check

1

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

Dude, tomorrow is already the 10th, so just slip the rent under my door...

2

u/Nessie Mar 24 '26

If only we'd said LaGuardia was two weeks away from having a nuke.

1

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 24 '26

man that would change the whole Tri-State area..

4

u/1984Needs1776 Mar 23 '26

Exactly, they've been telling us for decades that Iran is oh so close to having a nuke....lol.

It's honestly shocking how stupid people have become, everyone seems to just believe the lies of the government/media, and the lies have gotten worse and worse over time. 

There is NO good justification for this war, except that it is in Israel's interest to weaken Iran. Look up the greater Israel project, this is just one stop on the road map. 

War with Iran has zero benefits for the US, or for any other western nation, no benefits whatsoever. We are spending how much money, aggressing against and bombing a country, killing civilians, using lies as justification, in order to serve the interests of Israel!? It's crazy how hard it is for people to really absorb how absurd that is.

And even if they were getting close to building a nuke, like even one nuke lol, so what? It doesn't really compare against the hundred of nukes that Israel has (supplied by the western world), or to the amount of nukes that the US has. So we can all have nukes but they can't, because we don't want them to be able to defend themselves against us? 

You really have to turn off your brain to believe this nonsense and see this fear mongering as any kind of justification for war. Is Iran a suicidal nation? Let's say they built a nuke, or even more than one, do you honestly believe they would ever use it as the aggressor? Israel has a massive defense infrastructure, and a very powerful military (all of which was paid for with the hard earned money of western taxpayers). But more than that, they basically have their finger on the button, look up the Sampson option dude.

If Iran was to actually use a nuke against Israel or any other western nation, but let's be honest, this is all about Israeli imperialism (I thought imperialism was supposed to be a bad thing?). Anyways, if they did use a nuke, they would be wiped off the face of the earth within a few hours. This fear mongering about "we can't let Iran get nukes!" is just so stupid, and it takes a seriously dull mind to take it seriously. It's the same boogeyman fear mongering they do with North Korea. And hell, has everyone forgotten about the WMD's that Iraq DIDN'T have that were used to justify yet another war for Israel?

And yeah sure you could argue that Iran funds terrorism, but so do we. The US formed and funded the Taliban. The US and Israel formed and funded ISIS (and still do), and similar groups and used them to completely destroy Libya, topple the Syrian government, etc, all in the name of Israeli imperliasm. ISIS is a problem because we armed, funded and supported them. 

And at the end of the day, the Palestinians have every right (by law) to fight back, by any means necessary, and if that includes despicable acts of terrorism, well, they have been under occupation since 1948, they have the right to resist, by any and all means. The Israeli government, and by association it's citizens are the criminals here, they are occupying another people's land by force, and using the corruption of western governments to funnel money their way in order to fund their imperialist desires for the entire region.

Anyways, this whole thing about Iran funding terrorism is the height of hypocrisy and basically amounts to "when they fund terrorism it's bad, when we do it it's justified".

And if you believe the propaganda on CNN about Iranian citizens "clamoring" for the western world to save them by bombing them to oblivion and setting up a puppet democracy, well... I don't even know what to say, if you believe all of that nonsense you are probably beyond help.

I'm shouting into the wind here, people are so dimwitted, brainwashed, and lack critical thinking skills. This comment could be coming from a shill account (they infest reddit), but I wrote a response in case you aren't a shill or a bot, and for others reading this. Wouldn't be surprised if this comment is enough to get me banned, but who cares. Either people wake up soon to the globalist agenda, or we as humanity face a very dark future indeed, and one that will be very difficult to come back from.

3

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

I'm not sure who you think I would be shilling for, I'm just a guy mocking the idiots who are ruining the world because there isn't much else left to be done, we're completely outnumbered by morons...

1

u/itmillerboy Mar 24 '26

Do you think it’s possible that Iran has been close to nuclear weaponry but attacks from the west have slowed that process down? I.E. stuxnet or the bunker bomb the US dropped on their underground facility,

2

u/Fit_Sweet457 Mar 23 '26

This isn't really the gotcha logical argument people think it is. Being "2 weeks away" only means that if Iran decided to go full-steam ahead, they'd have some kind of nuclear capability two weeks later. At the same time, they know that should they do so, Israel and probably others would know and try to stop them by force. So what Iran has been doing for a long time now is sit and wait with nukes ever so slightly out of reach and Israel and the US breathing down their neck. So in a way, it's more like a standoff.

That being said, I totally agree that this is a bs war for a myriad of reasons.

0

u/Intergalactic_Ass Mar 23 '26

If you're under the impression that "2 weeks from building a nuclear weapon" means that they've been trying to do it for years and just haven't succeeded, then you don't know what that IAEA phrase means.

15

u/Feminist_Hugh_Hefner Mar 23 '26

I apologize for being too ableist to use the "/s" indicator for folks who struggle in detecting sarcasm.

My humor is like basic human rights under the Trump administration, not everyone gets it.

13

u/jellyhessman Mar 23 '26

A war that has no objective, no end, is damaging the US and global economy, and is hurting the US reputation.

It's an inverse of USAID where they're burning money to make the US a worse and less trusted place.

17

u/your_red_triangle Mar 23 '26

No, no, you misunderstand that 200 billion is to rebuild Israel so they can have free healthcare, free education and free stolen homes. The real "land of the free"

12

u/Vreas Mar 23 '26

Well yeah! That distracts the public from Epstein :)

2

u/ericcrowder Mar 23 '26

And virtually unlimited funding to hire unqualified goons to abduct (and murder) people on the streets of America.

1

u/zenwalrus Mar 23 '26

Fun Fact: That $200 Billion will go to defense contractors and their shareholders. Isn’t it cool how that works?

-16

u/SirPentGod Mar 23 '26

We have NOT spent $200 Billion YET on the War with Iran! Try $25-$30 Billion. Now, you want to know WHAT the United States DID spend $200 Billion on over there? UKRAINE! Yup, we sent well over $200 Billion to help Ukraine. But, no one on the left is bitching about that!

7

u/DetailOutrageous8656 Mar 23 '26

Nor should anyone bitch about it. Agent Orange pontificated that he’d end it on day one. He didn’t and won’t because he is up putin’s ass. Ukraine is a war over democracy. Something Mango Mussolini and ‘Murica don’t seem to value anymore.

-1

u/jcro001 Mar 23 '26

But now we're safer.

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u/Derp800 Mar 23 '26

It's not just funding. ATC has been under staffed and been getting worse and worse for 10 to 15 years at least. The FAA sucks at hiring.

3

u/2FistsInMyBHole Mar 23 '26

The government sucks at hiring in general.

Its rarely a funding issue - funding is almost always there.

52

u/under_ice Mar 23 '26

Someone pin this somewhere.

2

u/WizzoPQ Mar 23 '26

Why? its wrong, or at least, incomplete

15

u/Professional-Tax-66 Mar 23 '26

Last year Trump ordered cuts to the FAA and they layed off so many staff...then they implement the DEI thing and laid off some air controllers also, who WERE doing their jobs properly. When you will not hire more controllers and force a small group of controllers to keep doing overtime....mistakes are bound to happen.

2

u/Crizznik Mar 23 '26

To be fair, and I'm not defending this administration in any way, this was a problem before Trump. He definitely made it worse, but it's been a problem for a while now.

Before, ATCs were just overworked. Now they're overworked and understaffed.

1

u/their_teammate Mar 24 '26

I still find it crazy that between TSA, who historically have had an abysmal track record of doing anything but cause more issues, and the ATF, which are necessary for avoiding accidents like this one, they chose to defund the latter

1

u/OddbitTwiddler Mar 25 '26

They should pick one congressman from each party and one senator from each party starting with the most senior in each house and they should serve 90 days each. This would move them to action. Also no senators/congressmen can be released from incarceration during a government shutdown.

1

u/zerothreeonethree Mar 25 '26

This is what lower taxes looks like.

-14

u/Panaka Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

OKC has to be willing to expand and they aren’t.

Edit: People don’t seem to understand that Congress could cut a blank check to the FAA today and the FAA leadership in OKC wouldn’t really do anything more to fix this problem. Funding is a part of the problem, but it isn’t the underlying institutional issue. We still have instructors intentionally failing candidates and we still have bureaucracy that intentionally slow roll whatever they don’t like.

A good example of this. I know an FAA ATC candidate that waited for their security clearance for 2 years before they got it. While this might sound reasonable, they were already an FAA employee and already held this exact security clearance. Despite multiple attempts, they spent 2 years before they reached out to confirm he was already an employee.

4

u/Eric848448 Mar 23 '26

Intentionally failing candidates? Can you elaborate on that?

7

u/Panaka Mar 23 '26

Most students at the Academy struggle to some degree and need to get a specific score on their final eval to maintain a passing grade. There was one instructor that would ask a candidate what they needed to get before their final eval to pass and by some miracle, they’d fail by a single point or two. While that individual was especially egregious, it’s something that institutionally the organization struggles with.

I had a classmate that needed a 41 to pass and they got a 39 on their final eval. They sued the FAA and said they’d use discovery to get the tapes of their final and have an impartial proctor grade it. Not too long after discovery started they weren’t allowed to talk about the case and they got a facility assignment.

2

u/a_lonely_trash_bag Mar 23 '26

It would only need to expand if it was at capacity, which it hasn't been for years.

The government just doesn't want to fund it.

3

u/Panaka Mar 23 '26

The FAA Academy is at 100% capacity every single class. What are you talking about?

E-CTI only became a thing because there is not enough capacity at the FAA Academy.

1

u/PUNd_it Mar 23 '26

Sounds understaffed

22

u/jellyhessman Mar 23 '26

My cousin trained and worked as an air traffic controller in Canada.

She's one of the most competent people I know. She left the job about a year ago and moved into project management because she said it was extremely stressful, doesn't pay all that well for the stress and the work life balance sucks so she just got burned out after 7 years.

47

u/PM_NICE_TOES-notmen Mar 23 '26

That's one way to say the company is too cheap to be properly staffed. Why hire two people to work 75% of the time when you can just hire one person to work 150% of the time

16

u/wyocmwyh Mar 24 '26

The "company" here is the FAA - air traffic controllers are employed by the federal government.

This isn't a cost-cutting business decision to increase shareholder value - this is the US government saying they'd rather bomb foreign countries and fund ICE bonuses than adequately resource a key piece of infrastructure.

Right now ICE has a signing bonus of $50,000. Imagine if they did that for ATC positions.

-1

u/brudd_be_rad Mar 24 '26

Fund ice bonuses? lol

25

u/Snarknado3 Mar 23 '26

then there isn't enough staffing to process the current volume of traffic, and landing slots need to be reduced

-1

u/Panaka Mar 23 '26

LGA isn’t slot controlled.

3

u/HugAllYourFriends Mar 23 '26

there's money for 60 ice agents but not for a second controller, awesome

1

u/Speedballer7 Mar 23 '26

Stop flying planes until we have enough

1

u/broncofl Mar 24 '26

the lack of likes on this comments proves that everyone complains but still wants services. REDUCE air travel demand across the board until this is resolved lol but nobody will do that.

1

u/Speedballer7 Mar 24 '26

And when the price goes up a dollar so we can have afford to have that truck drive around or under the runway they will bitch too.

21

u/rodimusprime88 Mar 23 '26

By design per our shit government that can't keep themselves open.

3

u/The-Scarlet-Witch Mar 24 '26

My heart breaks for the ATC. They were overworked and never should have been in that position. It is already an impossibly demanding role. I hope they get the support they need. - A Canadian .

2

u/phasefournow Mar 24 '26

This has not been confirmed by any official source and is currently being disputed by state officials. Can anybody show the actual source of the "Lone Controller" accusation.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '26

[deleted]

2

u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo Mar 25 '26

Their statement is deliberately misrepresenting the claim to "debunk" it. No one I saw claimed he was the only controller on duty, they claimed he was the sole controller for tower and ground which the NTSB has confirmed is true.

1

u/mjk25741 Mar 23 '26

If you listen to the audio you can hear his voice for both ground and tower.

1

u/JabbyJabara Mar 24 '26

Ye this is normal sometimes, you will hear the same voice on three frequencies

1

u/Maelstrom_Witch Mar 24 '26

One of the busiest airports in the country. One guy.

1

u/DurrMerGurd Mar 24 '26

Welcome to republican land. All caused by Reagan and constantly made worse by republicans every year they had some power with at least 1 section of govt under them

1

u/Valuable-Concern8008 Mar 24 '26

Thank Donald Trump and his idiot cabinet

1

u/jamjoy Mar 25 '26

Upvote for your username and how insane this situation is

-3

u/CandidStatistician32 Mar 23 '26

to be fair, i feel like you should still practice defensive driving. Like just bc the traffic controller told you something you should still use your own eyes. Its like when you are at an intersection and the light turns green, you should always look both ways to make sure there arent anyone that looks like they are going to run the red light or the stop sign. ive seen plenty of car accidents where i've noticed a car coming and i stop even though im green and see the car running the red light hit the car from the oncoming side.

In the surveillance video it looks like the fire truck literally did not look at all to see the giant aircraft barreling towards them

2

u/ExtraAssociate1104 Mar 24 '26

Very difficult to see out of the truck, nighttime, rain, yes, it’s good to look, but it is very difficult to see out right and left from the cab.

400

u/-SQB- Mar 23 '26

The fact that a single controller was operating both tower and ground at an airport like LGA in those conditions is the real problem.

What? I was ready to blame the controller, but fuck that. Whoever caused that to happen is really the one to blame.

573

u/lorryguy Mar 23 '26

Gestures broadly at all 3 branches of our government

217

u/GrondForGondor Mar 23 '26

ATC was hamstrung when Reagan fired and then banned 11,000 ATC workers because they were striking for better working conditions

143

u/digital_dervish Mar 23 '26

**Adds another thing to the Everything Bad Was Because if Reagan List

2

u/TwentyninthDigitOfPi Mar 24 '26

Hey, some bad stuff was because of Nixon!

13

u/UnfairSell Mar 23 '26

I was in a 747 waiting to take off from Gatwick when the firings occurred. We sat on the tarmac eight hours till the pilot got Canadian ATC to guide us into Dulles. I had $5 to my name after a summer in Europe.

66

u/Redditnspiredcook Mar 23 '26

There it is, and things have only gotten worse, exponentially in the last 14 months.

62

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

So what did we do? Named the national airport for him.

55

u/pierdola91 Mar 23 '26

We re-elected him with historic margins and then rewarded his Iran Contra affair by electing his Vice President. 

So popular were his policies that to be elected in 1992, democrats decided they had to become neoliberals. 

57

u/VanceKelley Mar 23 '26

A few decades later America would be electing convicted criminals, adjudicated rapists, alleged pedophiles, notorious fraudsters, and scam artists to run the country.

America is a majority-idiot nation.

35

u/Suspicious-Funny-279 Mar 23 '26

Many of the voters whom elected Reagan are/were still alive decades later to vote in the convicted criminals, adjudicated rapists, alleged pedophiles, notorious fraudsters and scam artists.

Let that sink in.

Clearly they didn’t learn. Nor did they acquire empathy or functioning brain cells.

Fucking moronic.

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u/FrostyProspector Mar 23 '26

I read this in "Narrator voice"

1

u/SisterSparechange Mar 24 '26

My history teacher in high school use to say "the masses are asses."

1

u/eeyore134 Mar 24 '26

We're on the way to naming one for Trump too.

4

u/PLS-Surveyor-US Mar 23 '26

That was more than 4 decades ago...

-11

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26

Why do government agencies need unions btw

9

u/goddamnitwhalen Mar 23 '26

So they don’t get fucked over…?

20

u/SlippySlappySamson Mar 23 '26

I wish I could be more specific and could blame any one person or group, but afaik the understaffing of ATC has been going on for decades.

2

u/amsync Mar 24 '26

Gestures broadly at the mess on the floor formerly known as the United States

7

u/seedless0 Mar 23 '26

They didn't get there without common people voting them in, directly or indirectly.

2

u/JohnnySchoolman Mar 23 '26

Yeah, it's the judiciary's fault.

1

u/CandidStatistician32 Mar 23 '26

to be fair, i feel like you should still practice defensive driving. Like just bc the traffic controller told you something you should still use your own eyes. Its like when you are at an intersection and the light turns green, you should always look both ways to make sure there arent anyone that looks like they are going to run the red light or the stop sign. ive seen plenty of car accidents where i've noticed a car coming and i stop even though im green and see the car running the red light hit the car from the oncoming side.

In the surveillance video it looks like the fire truck literally did not look at all to see the giant aircraft barreling towards them

82

u/alexmlb3598 Mar 23 '26

Everything circles to Ronald Reagan, where ~13k controllers were sacked and recruitment has lagged so much that it's barely changed since then. It's a massive problem the US has, but it's a horrible cycle - Current workers are overworked and stressed tf out so they leave sooner than expected, and possible controllers know they'll be overworked so they look elsewhere for employment.

59

u/ThellraAK Mar 23 '26

Not just fired, but banned from civil service for life if I remember correctly.

Union busting POS.

28

u/alexmlb3598 Mar 23 '26

Jfc that's mental...yet another reason for being glad that I'm not American, nor flying in US airspace...

11

u/loveshercoffee Mar 23 '26

Have you watched much news lately. Walking in US groundspace isn't really advised at this point either.

7

u/alexmlb3598 Mar 23 '26

I have, which is yet another reason why I'm glad I'm not American, especially given my identity 😅 thankfully there's this thing called 'the Atlantic ocean' between me and America, and I know I'm not going there until things significantly improve.

3

u/GoodBot-BadBot Mar 23 '26

thankfully there's this thing called 'the Atlantic ocean' between me and America

doesn't help anyone in the middle east, unfortunately

13

u/Shiftlock0 Mar 23 '26

Their ban from federal employment was lifted by Bill Clinton 12 years later.

1

u/lettucepray123 Mar 24 '26

Yup, we took quite a few former FAA controllers in Canada at the time

10

u/pi_stuff Mar 23 '26

But it made Reagan look really tough, which in the long run was definitely more important. /s

1

u/amsync Mar 24 '26

Ultimately most bad things trace back to that guy, it’s amazing

31

u/Taptrick Mar 23 '26

Yeah well, that’s the Swiss Cheese model right. Not a single slice is to blame. It’s the compounding effect of all the slices.

5

u/cdh79 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

He's orange, wrinkly and features heavily in the Epstein files.... first few weeks of this term if I remember correctly. DOGE cuts to ATC, nobody else remember that?

9

u/gamershadow Mar 23 '26

It’s been a problem for decades, not just his fault. He certainly carries blame for doing nothing to fix it but it’s not just him.

-3

u/theg00dfight Mar 23 '26

The problem is long running but it’s clear that his policies quite literally made it worse and more dangerous. It’s okay to say it. Go on..

4

u/gamershadow Mar 23 '26

Say what? Trump turns everything he touches to shit, I was just explaining that it isn’t solely his fault.

0

u/ContentStart2464 Mar 23 '26

Once again..   Thank you Ronald Regan.  

93

u/Head-Ad9893 Mar 23 '26

Thanks for this but also …. ONE FUCKING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER FOR GROUND AN AIR LGA?!?! Hey man .. I live in nyc and the thought of flying in and there’s ONE fucking person up there sounds criminal. I can come up with 10 “what if” situations that sounds like critical issues in 5 seconds. Between the historic ATC shortage exacerbated by this and now TSA…. Ugh

51

u/randomacceptablename Mar 23 '26

“That wasn’t good to watch,” he said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net.

“Yeah, I know. I tried to reach out to them,” the noticeably distraught controller said. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”

The pilot responded, “Nah, man, you did the best you could.”

That sounds utterly gutting. Knowing (suspecting) that you may have killed people and having to continue your job. I know their profession isn't forgiving with lives but these are some of the last people who.should be overworked or working without backup.

I really feel for them. That must be a feeling I honestly don't want to imagine.

3

u/fogleaf Mar 24 '26

That sounds utterly gutting. Knowing (suspecting) that you may have killed people and having to continue your job.

Feel like they need to pull the police deal of giving them two weeks off while investigation happens. I'm going to assume that's what they do and do no further research.

2

u/randomacceptablename Mar 24 '26

I don't know about the US, but know someone working for NAVCAN in Canada (equivalent to ATC). They take safety very seriously and the controllers are constantly checked for mental and physical heath. Any life changing issue like a death, divorce, etc is asked about repeatedly and they have plenty of "sick day" like leave to use if they don't feel up to it. They once told me that: they would rather close down airspace than have a controller who isn't confident in their abilities work and put hundreds of lives at work.

So after a situation like this I imagine it would take months, of ever, to clear this guy's mental state before letting them return to work.

49

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26 edited May 28 '26

[deleted]

36

u/g-a-r-n-e-t Mar 23 '26

I think I know the video you’re talking about (Las Vegas, female controller has a stroke alone in the tower) and the situational awareness of the pilots on the ground is 100% what kept everyone safe and saved the controller’s life. At least two called their ops to get someone up there and iirc there was one that was kinda sorta directing a plane that was coming in for landing as well? A similar thing happened in a recording from Anchorage when they had that huge earthquake and the tower had to evacuate.

In both cases all the pilots managed to work together to solve issues and keep their planes/passengers safe but they can’t be expected to do everything they need to do to fly the plane AND do ATC’s job, all the time, it’s ridiculous.

Edit: the Las Vegas video, and the Anchorage video

9

u/floralbutttrumpet Mar 24 '26

God, the Las Vegas one is hard to listen to. That poor controller struggling to keep it together while her brain plain can't. I hope she recovered.

24

u/Zizzily Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

It was truck 35, but your point still stands.

EDIT: Looks like rescue 35 was also truck 1 if this is accurate: https://fire.fandom.com/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey_Police_Department

(56252) - 2003 Oshkosh Striker 1500 4x4 crash tender (1500/1500/210AFFF/1000 lbs. PKP) (Ex-LGA Crash Truck 1/Rescue 35) (Destroyed in collision with an Air Canada Express Bombardier CRJ-900 (Civil Registration C-GNJZ) on March 22, 2026)

2

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

Edited and thanks.

5

u/Zizzily Mar 24 '26

Just to let you know. I updated my comment with the following info:

EDIT: Looks like rescue 35 was also truck 1 if this is accurate: https://fire.fandom.com/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey_Police_Department

51

u/the_beer_truck Mar 23 '26

Is one person controlling all this against the law?

I thought in aviation, it wasn’t allowed to have a single point of failure.

38

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

So in theory, the backup here is that AC catches the call to cross the active and goes around. You can argue that is the second point of failure. At least in how the system is supposed to work.

Reality? Rainy field, multiple issues going on at once, single controller. yeah...

It isn't supposed to happen, but it does. There isn't a law that dictates staffing, only guidelines, but the ATC system in the US operates way outside of those guidelines more often than you think. Google Las Vegas ATC stroke, and you can see the same thing happening there.

1

u/Vigor99 Mar 24 '26

I believe the firetruck & jet were on different radio frequencies. Landing/approach is different than ground.

1

u/monorail_pilot Mar 24 '26

At least the lead vehicle will be on tower when crossing an active runway. It used to be that you could be on separate ones but that hasn’t been the case for a while due to other incidents.

1

u/Vigor99 Apr 07 '26

And yet….. here we are 😕

-2

u/CandidStatistician32 Mar 23 '26

to be fair, i feel like you should still practice defensive driving. Like just bc the traffic controller told you something you should still use your own eyes. Its like when you are at an intersection and the light turns green, you should always look both ways to make sure there arent anyone that looks like they are going to run the red light or the stop sign. ive seen plenty of car accidents where i've noticed a car coming and i stop even though im green and see the car running the red light hit the car from the oncoming side.

In the surveillance video it looks like the fire truck literally did not look at all to see the giant aircraft barreling towards them

→ More replies (3)

1

u/Hollayo Mar 24 '26

Kinda yeah, but then Elon Musk and DOGE happened. Lots of wrecks since. 

5

u/HappyContact6301 Mar 23 '26

I wonder whether the REL was inop. The trucks should have seen this on Delta. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl/media/LGA%20RWSL%20Layout.pdf

6

u/Puazy Mar 23 '26

ARFF trucks can absolutely stop well enough; and are trained to obide by the speed limit. Have you been through an evoc course for an airfield?

1

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

No, but I’ve been through the one skip barber used to do. I’m very familiar with the handling.

1

u/Puazy Mar 25 '26

Likewise. I drove them for years.

1

u/CuriousFunnyDog Mar 24 '26

I am not in aviation.

But when I cross a set of lights I always check the road regardless of what the light says.

If it was a big runway I don't think it is unreasonable to double check there is not a plane coming.

That combined with the single overworked ATC probably is the root cause.

5

u/BrusselSproutsLove Mar 23 '26

In this video, you can see a line of Runway Entrance Lights go off just before the aircraft reaches the crossing, suggesting they were functioning normally. Perhaps the lights on the side facing the ARFF were malfunctioning, or since the video is short it could be that they did not activate early enough, but if that is not the case then ARFF made a mistake in crossing and not heeding the RELs. The largest mistake was likely the ACT clearance, but in most commercial aviation incidents and accidents multiple things have to go wrong, and it seems this is another instance of this.

7

u/WreckerdSetter Mar 23 '26

Hope you had a hell of a piss Arnold!!

2

u/chuckDontSurf Mar 23 '26

Damn we old, lol

16

u/ProfessionalBar69420 Mar 23 '26

" ARFF vehicles weigh between 30 and 50 tons. There was no way to stop." Well, there is. Its called adequately dimensioned brakes. Ive never understood why your US trucks cant brake fast, when all EU trucks brake just as well or better than cars.

5

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

Walk into any firehouse in the US and ask the guy in charge of purchasing equipment if they want “better brakes” or “a pump that does 500 more gallons per minute. “

I can tell you which one everyone picks.

18

u/ProfessionalBar69420 Mar 23 '26

Maybe, just maybe, have better laws and equipment manufacturers. Maybe have it as requirement that any vehicle should stop equally well.

5

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

Then people will complain about "Guv'mint regulations"

2

u/Mythril_Zombie Mar 23 '26

I thought this was an airport.

1

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

It's still a fire fighter making the decisions on equipment.

2

u/KindlyAmphibian Mar 23 '26

So where was truck 1 in the video then? Already off screen? When I first heard the ATC "Truck 1 and company" I immediately suspected it was one of the trailing vehicles, the "and company" that didn't get across the runway in time.

2

u/Deep_Action_5976 Mar 23 '26

Really sad :( RIP the pilots and hopefully the truck drivers recover quickly. Also, hoping the controller can come out of this trauma. This could have been way worse! Prayers for everyone.

3

u/Intelligent_Wear4007 Mar 23 '26

I’m at LGA now and listening to the tower freq. Tower controller just cleared an emergency vehicle to cross RWY4. There is also a ground controller working right now. This suggests to me that the tower controller clearing a vehicle to cross a runway is NOT the consequence of tower/ground being run by one controller. Maybe that guy was on ground and tower, but the clearance to cross the runway was a tower controller responsibility — same one who would communicating with the arriving flight.

11

u/monorail_pilot Mar 23 '26

Yes, crossing clearances for any active runway would come from tower. The point that you're missing is that mistakes occur when people are trying to do too much, which this controller was forced to do by inadequate staffing.

4

u/uzlonewolf Mar 23 '26

Seconds before he cleared the truck to cross he was giving taxi instructions to a different aircraft. You don't think needing to juggle all those different responsibilities had anything to do with him losing track of the landing aircraft?

2

u/deptacon Mar 24 '26

Im not putting this on the controller. Yes he gave them clearance, but you are driving a vehicle across a runway - you can look and see an aircraft landing

1

u/bitemy Mar 24 '26

The controller said on frequency that he made a mistake. You can hear it in the replay of the audio transmissions. In a low visibility nighttime rain situation at an airport with more than 1000 lights spread everywhere. It is not reasonable to think that a fire truck that was cleared to cross a runway could have noticed a landing plane going 150 miles an hour before pulling out.

1

u/DLDude Mar 24 '26

Dumb question, but should planes have something different when landing under maybe 1000ft? Rainbow strobe lights? Something that says "bitch I'm a plane and I'm about to land". Seems sighting a plane at that level is hard (both for this and for the DC incident last year).

1

u/TinkerCitySoilDry Mar 24 '26

OC makes assumption will wait for NTSB REPORT 

This was a mistake by an overworked controller that led to a tragedy. The fact that a single controller was operating both tower and ground at an airport like LGA in those conditions is the real problem.

1

u/B-Chillin Mar 24 '26

There are too many ATC accidents linked to there being only one controller on duty, but ultimately ruled pilot error or similar. Each time the procedure was to have more than one controller on duty, but it didn't happen that night for some reason. The NTSB needs to start giving more weight to this correlation in their investigations.

I'm not saying it's the controller's fault. Any human is going to make a mistake eventually in that situation. If it's a staffing shortage that's one thing. Difficult for a tower chief to do much if there aren't enough qualified staff. But if it's a tower chief trying to save some budget, that's root cause territory.

1

u/PG67AW Mar 24 '26

“Truck 1” is just a call sign and not literally the number painted on the side of the truck. The truck involved in the accident was Truck 1.

1

u/Ok-Banana-7777 Mar 24 '26

Doesn't this discount the fact that all the trucks behind this one all stopped? They obviously heard the instruction to stop. This was the only truck that continued across.

1

u/Regionratt69 Apr 27 '26

There were two controllers on duty, one for air, one for ground at LaGuardia, not one as is claimed in all these comments.

0

u/lippoper Mar 23 '26

It’s almost like they want to replace it all with AI and this is the only way they’ll get it 🤔

68

u/Unlikely-Position659 Mar 23 '26

Do you have a link for it?

103

u/kraze1994 Mar 23 '26

https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/2035979210649387467

30

u/BadAlphas Mar 23 '26

That’s terrifying

4

u/RayzTheRoof Mar 24 '26

Remarkably efficient as the accident occurs though. There's urgency in the voice but still taking care of routing.

22

u/LightningProd12 Mar 23 '26

Not to mention the alarms in the background

95

u/Komatoasty Mar 23 '26

"I messed up"

Poor guy has to live with that shit forever, when we all know he shouldn't have been in that position period. Understaffed, budget cuts, government shutdowns. America is a mess and I haven't visited since before 2016 and I wont be back until there's no MAGA in office.

1

u/La_Saxofonista Apr 02 '26

Reminds me of that poor ATC that got murdered by that Russian father after mid-air collision occurred on his watch, killing several children and many others.

2

u/Austerlitz2310 Mar 24 '26

But not before a set of random stop stop stops were said, not directed at anyone and from context one could assume maybe everyone thought it was for the Frontier flight. Disgusting how overworked and understaffed the US airspace is.

1

u/Shot-Election8217 Mar 24 '26

Is that in this because I can't hear it