Fact Check: Does Air Canada crash into fire truck prove wild theory about 9/11?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK CITY: A deadly March 2026 crash at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, where an Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck, has sparked a wave of online claims questioning the 9/11 attacks. Some users argued that because the LaGuardia plane was damaged, the jets that struck the Twin Towers could not have brought down the buildings. Let's fact-check the claim.

Claim: Air Canada crash proves planes couldn’t have destroyed the Twin Towers

A deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport has reignited long-debunked conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Some claimed that the damage to the Air Canada plane’s cockpit proves the jets could not have brought down the Twin Towers.

One X user shared a screenshot of the LaGuardia crash and asked, "What could be learned here?" Within days of being posted, it gained over 4.3 million followers, and many comments have been shared across platforms.

Another user responded, "That an airplane didn't take down the Twin Towers."

A third user added, "This ⬆️ is what happens when a plane ✈️ hits metal/steel… Not this… ⬇️," with the upward arrow showing the Air Canada crash and the downward arrow representing the Twin Towers explosion.

Similar posts questioning the 9/11 attacks spread across X and other platforms after two pilots were killed and dozens were injured when the Air Canada plane struck a fire truck on the LaGuardia runway on March 22, 2026.

The accident halted flights, leaving the Bombardier jet tilted back onto its tail with its cockpit smashed. "How does an airplane get destroyed by a fire truck yet can also destroy the Twin Towers in New York?" one user asked.

Fact Check: Experts debunk rumors linking Air Canada crash to 9/11 attacks

Conspiracy theories questioning the official account of 9/11 have circulated for decades, but they have been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. The recent claims linking the March 2026 Air Canada crash at LaGuardia to the Twin Towers collapse are equally unfounded.

Aviation experts say it makes no sense to compare the two incidents. The LaGuardia crash involved a small plane moving slowly, with no explosion, while the jets on 9/11 were much larger, faster, and caused massive fires.

“There is absolutely no rationale whatsoever to take any information from the crash at LaGuardia to support anything whatsoever that happened on 9/11,” said Shawn Pruchnicki, an assistant professor at The Ohio State University’s Center for Aviation Studies and a former airline pilot trained in accident investigation. "It's two completely different situations from a matter of kinetic energy, from speed of the collision, and the fact that there was no fire involved,” he added.

The plane at LaGuardia was an Air Canada Express Mitsubishi CRJ900, weighing about 75,100 pounds and carrying 72 passengers and four crew members. Reports say the plane was traveling between 30 and 105 miles per hour when it hit the fire truck. “They were already slowing the airplane,” Pruchnicki said, adding that the pilots likely used maximum braking. The fire truck was severely damaged, flipped on its side, and dragged across the runway, injuring two Port Authority firefighters.

By comparison, the jets that struck the Twin Towers on 9/11 were Boeing 767s. The American Airlines flight that hit the first tower weighed 283,600 pounds and was moving at 440 miles per hour. The United Airlines plane that hit the second tower was similarly sized and traveling 540 miles per hour. The massive difference in size and speed created far more kinetic energy than the LaGuardia crash, Pruchnicki explained. “From a kinetic energy standpoint, there is no comparison whatsoever between the two. The magnitude is astronomical.”

Joris Melkert, a senior lecturer at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, shared a similar statement in a March 25 email. He said the LaGuardia incident “does not make much sense.” He added, “Kinetic energy goes up linearly with the mass and quadratically with the velocity, and thus the potential to do damage to the other object. I would not be surprised if the amount of energy involved in the WTC case was in the order of 10 times higher than in the Air Canada case.”