‘Clear error’: LaGuardia air traffic controllers under fire after deadly Air Canada crash

LAGUARDIA AIRPORT, NEW YORK: Was the deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport preventable? Experts say yes. They point to a critical miscommunication that likely led to the disaster on Sunday night, March 22, when an Air Canada Express regional jet arriving from Montreal went down during its approach to New York. 

The CRJ-900, operated by Jazz Aviation, claimed the lives of both the pilot and co-pilot, while more than 39 passengers and crew members, along with two Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting officers, were rushed to hospitals.

Coordination breakdown between tower and ground control

“Once that aircraft was cleared to land … it owned that runway,” said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, in an interview with The New York Post. She pointed to apparent confusion between the control tower and ground control when the plane collided with a truck. She added that audio recordings suggest a single individual may have been handling both local and ground control duties at the time.

“There are two parts here — there’s the control in the tower, also called local control, and there’s ground control. And those two air traffic control entities are supposed to coordinate with each other,” Schiavo explained, emphasizing the breakdown in coordination. 

“So clearly they either did not coordinate, or they did and were just wrong. But giving a fire truck clearance to cross the runway after an aircraft has been cleared to run in this final is a clear error. There’s just no way around that,” she said.

Raising further concerns, she questioned the chain of command behind the decision, “Who gave the final clearance for that fire truck across the runway? It should have been the tower, but clearly … someone made a very critical mistake in allowing a fire truck clearance to cross the runway when an aircraft had been given a landing clearance. That’s my take on it."

Schiavo compared it to last year’s American Airlines collision with a military helicopter over the Potomac River, which killed 67 people.

Schiavo said, “And it’s tragic, and it’s sad. But … I have to say I’m not surprised. I’m saddened, but I’m not surprised that we have another coordination problem with air traffic control.”

Air traffic control responsible for vehicles on runways

Harvey Sconick, who spent more than 38 years with the FAA, said he believes the air traffic controller completely lost focus "for a minute.”

Sconick shared, “There’s no explanation I can give you that would make any sense why the controller would cross those vehicles, knowing that there’s a runway, that there’s an airplane flaring out to land."

"It’s possible that one person was directing both air and ground traffic late at night when the airport got less busy, or perhaps the controllers were working on different frequencies and unable to communicate,” he said.

“Unless the fire truck driver fell asleep, he would have heard that there was an airplane landing on that runway,” Sconick added. “And when the controller cleared him to cross the runway. He would have said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want us to cross? You’ve got a guy landing.’”

Chilling audio from the air traffic control tower captured the chaotic moments, including one controller admitting he “messed up.”

The regional jet from Montreal, operated by Jazz Aviation, struck the fire truck just before midnight on Runway 4 at the Queens transit hub. The truck had been responding to a separate incident involving another plane.

Kathryn Garcia told reporters that air traffic control is responsible for any vehicles on the runways.

“The procedure is always in deference to the control tower, any time anyone is moving on any of our runways or taxiways,” she said Monday. “They have to get clearance from the tower to move on our runways or our taxiways.”