By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR
An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York, - Copyright AFP TIMOTHY A. CLARY
An Air Canada Express / Jazz Aviation CRJ-900 jet crashed into an Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) truck on a runway at about 11:40 p.m. on 22nd March, 2026 at New York’s LaGuardia airport, killing both pilots and critically injuring four firefighters, according to NBC News. The Air Canada Flight AC8646 originated at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau international airport, the major airport serving Montreal.
It is also being reported that a flight attendant in her seat was ejected through the front of the plane and was taken by first responders to a nearby hospital. It is also reported that at least 32 people on board were transported with injuries to local hospitals, some with serious injuries.
Jazz Aviation has issued a statement confirming the accident and noting the passenger and crew list was preliminary and subject to confirmation.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident site and LaGuardia reopened at 2pm ET. LaGuardia is the 19th busiest of 500 U.S. airports, with more than 16.7 million passengers boarding there.
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices and internationally recognised plaintiffs’ attorney, has been looking into this latest aviation tragedy.
Clifford serves as Lead Counsel in the crash of a Boeing MAX8 737 jet that killed all 157 on board in 2019 and Co-Counsel in the recent Washington, D.C. midair crash of an American Airlines jet and US Army helicopter as well as the recent UPS MD-11 crash in Louisville, Kentucky, that killed 15 people. Clifford also represented several people who were injured in the 2013 Asiana crash.
Clifford explains to Digital Journal: “The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is beginning its investigation today and will hopefully soon disclose the basic facts about what happened and within a year determine what should be done to avoid these needless deaths and injuries.”
Looking at the evidence amassed to date, Clifford comments: ” While we wait for the official NTSB information, the publicly available versions of the FAA Air Traffic Control (ATC) audio recordings for this crash appear to indicate that the ATC controller may have cleared the ARFF vehicle to cross the runway as the Air Canada jet was completing its landing on the runway.”
This leads Clifford to consider some potential corrective actions: “This preliminary information at the very least highlights the continuing need for better and safer ATC and ground vehicle control systems and protocols to assure the safe movement of ARFF vehicles on airport surfaces.”
SCIENCE EDITOR
DIGITAL JOURNAL
March 23, 2026An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York, - Copyright AFP TIMOTHY A. CLARY
An Air Canada Express / Jazz Aviation CRJ-900 jet crashed into an Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) truck on a runway at about 11:40 p.m. on 22nd March, 2026 at New York’s LaGuardia airport, killing both pilots and critically injuring four firefighters, according to NBC News. The Air Canada Flight AC8646 originated at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau international airport, the major airport serving Montreal.
It is also being reported that a flight attendant in her seat was ejected through the front of the plane and was taken by first responders to a nearby hospital. It is also reported that at least 32 people on board were transported with injuries to local hospitals, some with serious injuries.
Jazz Aviation has issued a statement confirming the accident and noting the passenger and crew list was preliminary and subject to confirmation.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident site and LaGuardia reopened at 2pm ET. LaGuardia is the 19th busiest of 500 U.S. airports, with more than 16.7 million passengers boarding there.
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices and internationally recognised plaintiffs’ attorney, has been looking into this latest aviation tragedy.
Clifford serves as Lead Counsel in the crash of a Boeing MAX8 737 jet that killed all 157 on board in 2019 and Co-Counsel in the recent Washington, D.C. midair crash of an American Airlines jet and US Army helicopter as well as the recent UPS MD-11 crash in Louisville, Kentucky, that killed 15 people. Clifford also represented several people who were injured in the 2013 Asiana crash.
Clifford explains to Digital Journal: “The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is beginning its investigation today and will hopefully soon disclose the basic facts about what happened and within a year determine what should be done to avoid these needless deaths and injuries.”
Looking at the evidence amassed to date, Clifford comments: ” While we wait for the official NTSB information, the publicly available versions of the FAA Air Traffic Control (ATC) audio recordings for this crash appear to indicate that the ATC controller may have cleared the ARFF vehicle to cross the runway as the Air Canada jet was completing its landing on the runway.”
This leads Clifford to consider some potential corrective actions: “This preliminary information at the very least highlights the continuing need for better and safer ATC and ground vehicle control systems and protocols to assure the safe movement of ARFF vehicles on airport surfaces.”
Air Canada jet took off from Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport
“This is not the first time airplane crew members and passengers and ground vehicle crewmembers have died or been injured by tragic crashes like this” Clifford cautions. “The following similar crashes have left hundreds dead and injured over the years:1984 Aeroflot crash at Omsk Airport in the Soviet Union where the airplane struck maintenance vehicles on the runway during landing killing 178 people 2013 Asiana crash at San Francisco International Airport where an ARFF truck and ran over and killed a 16-year-old female passenger who had exited or been thrown from airplane wreckage 2022 LATAM crash of an Airbus 320 that hit an ARFF fire truck during the takeoff roll in Lima, Peru, killing 2 firefighters.
Clifford states that regulatory agencies must learn from this incident and build improved safety measures: “The FAA and others in the aviation industry must learn from these mistakes and develop better and more redundant means of preventing these ground accidents, especially late at night when visibility, fatigue, and other human performance issues may reduce safety.”
US officials downplay controller ‘distraction’ in New York crash
By AFP
March 24, 2026
The deadly collision crushed the cockpit of the Bombardier aircraft - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS
US officials on Tuesday played down speculation that distracted air traffic controllers might have contributed to a deadly collision between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
Two pilots were killed in the runway crash late Sunday, which crushed the cockpit of the Bombardier plane and heavily damaged the emergency vehicle.
Media reports said investigators were probing whether airport traffic controllers were distracted by a separate odor issue on a United Airlines flight — the emergency to which the fire truck was responding.
“I would caution pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters.
“We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure,” she said.
“Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident. So when something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong,” she said.
Two air traffic controllers were working in LaGuardia’s tower at the time, Homendy said.
In addition to their core roles, the two were handling departure clearances and ground traffic control, though it was unclear how those duties were distributed.
Homendy said the staffing level was “common practice across the national airspace” for a midnight shift, noting however that her agency had previously raised concerns about fatigue.
“We have no indication that was a factor here, but it is a shift that we have been focused on in past investigations,” she said.
– No alert –
Homendy added that the runway safety system ASDE-X, designed to track aircraft and ground vehicles, did not generate an alert before the crash because the fire truck was not equipped with a transponder.
The NTSB’s lead investigator Doug Brazy said the board was analyzing more than 25 hours of cockpit voice recordings and 80 hours of flight data.
He said the final three minutes captured in the cockpit included the co-pilot transferring control to the captain six seconds before the recording ended. The reason for this was unclear.
The collision was LaGuardia’s first fatal accident since 1992.
Located in the borough of Queens, LaGuardia is the third-busiest airport serving New York, handling 33.5 million passengers in 2024, according to port authority figures.
Deadly air crashes in the United States in recent years include a collision between a passenger jet and an army helicopter near Washington in January 2025 that killed 67 people.
By AFP
March 24, 2026
The deadly collision crushed the cockpit of the Bombardier aircraft - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS
US officials on Tuesday played down speculation that distracted air traffic controllers might have contributed to a deadly collision between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
Two pilots were killed in the runway crash late Sunday, which crushed the cockpit of the Bombardier plane and heavily damaged the emergency vehicle.
Media reports said investigators were probing whether airport traffic controllers were distracted by a separate odor issue on a United Airlines flight — the emergency to which the fire truck was responding.
“I would caution pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters.
“We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure,” she said.
“Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident. So when something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong,” she said.
Two air traffic controllers were working in LaGuardia’s tower at the time, Homendy said.
In addition to their core roles, the two were handling departure clearances and ground traffic control, though it was unclear how those duties were distributed.
Homendy said the staffing level was “common practice across the national airspace” for a midnight shift, noting however that her agency had previously raised concerns about fatigue.
“We have no indication that was a factor here, but it is a shift that we have been focused on in past investigations,” she said.
– No alert –
Homendy added that the runway safety system ASDE-X, designed to track aircraft and ground vehicles, did not generate an alert before the crash because the fire truck was not equipped with a transponder.
The NTSB’s lead investigator Doug Brazy said the board was analyzing more than 25 hours of cockpit voice recordings and 80 hours of flight data.
He said the final three minutes captured in the cockpit included the co-pilot transferring control to the captain six seconds before the recording ended. The reason for this was unclear.
The collision was LaGuardia’s first fatal accident since 1992.
Located in the borough of Queens, LaGuardia is the third-busiest airport serving New York, handling 33.5 million passengers in 2024, according to port authority figures.
Deadly air crashes in the United States in recent years include a collision between a passenger jet and an army helicopter near Washington in January 2025 that killed 67 people.
‘Stop, truck one, stop!’: transcript of NY plane collision
By AFP
March 23, 2026
An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York, - Copyright AFP TIMOTHY A. CLARY
Moments before an Air Canada Express plane collided with a firetruck on the runway of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, a traffic controller cleared the truck to cross the runway and then urgently ordered it to halt, a recording showed.
The collision Sunday night killed the pilot and co-pilot, and 41 people on board were taken to the hospital, officials said.
The plane, operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of Air Canada, struck the firetruck on Runway 4 at around 11:40 pm as the truck drove to a separate incident.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Driver: “Truck one and company, LaGuardia Tower. Requesting to cross four at Delta.”
Controller: “Truck one and company, cross four at Delta.”
Driver: “Truck one and company crossing four at Delta.”
Controller: “Frontier 4195, stop there please. (Pause.) Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, stop, stop. Stop, truck one, stop! Stop, truck one, stop.”
(Alarm goes off.)
“Jazz 646. Jazz 646, I see you collided with vehicle. (Inaudible) Hold position. I know he can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”
After further dialogue.
Second controller: “Man, that wasn’t good to watch.”
First controller: “Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my staff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Second controller: “No man, you did the best you could.”
By AFP
March 23, 2026
An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York, - Copyright AFP TIMOTHY A. CLARY
Moments before an Air Canada Express plane collided with a firetruck on the runway of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, a traffic controller cleared the truck to cross the runway and then urgently ordered it to halt, a recording showed.
The collision Sunday night killed the pilot and co-pilot, and 41 people on board were taken to the hospital, officials said.
The plane, operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of Air Canada, struck the firetruck on Runway 4 at around 11:40 pm as the truck drove to a separate incident.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Driver: “Truck one and company, LaGuardia Tower. Requesting to cross four at Delta.”
Controller: “Truck one and company, cross four at Delta.”
Driver: “Truck one and company crossing four at Delta.”
Controller: “Frontier 4195, stop there please. (Pause.) Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, stop, stop. Stop, truck one, stop! Stop, truck one, stop.”
(Alarm goes off.)
“Jazz 646. Jazz 646, I see you collided with vehicle. (Inaudible) Hold position. I know he can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”
After further dialogue.
Second controller: “Man, that wasn’t good to watch.”
First controller: “Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my staff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Second controller: “No man, you did the best you could.”
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