Moments before an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck Sunday at LaGuardia Airport, an air traffic controller recorded a confession after they “got it wrong.”
“The truck was cleared to cross the airport’s Runway 4 before air traffic controllers urged a Miami-bound Frontier plane and the vehicle to stop.“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” the observer demanded frantically. “Truck One, stop, stop, stop. Stop Truck One. Stop.”The controller ordered Delta Flight 2603, en route from Detroit, to turn around before returning to the Air Canada plane, a flight operated by Jazz Air that landed from Montreal, the New York Post reported.
“Jazz 646, I see you’ve hit the vehicle. Just hold your position. I know you can’t move. The vehicles are responding to you now,” the air traffic controller said.Air traffic controllers told the Frontier crew that the runway would be closed, and asked them if they wanted to return to the ramp.“We got things in progress for this guy, and it wasn’t good to watch,” Frontier pilots said.“Yes, I tried to contact them…we were dealing with an emergency and I made a mistake,” the controller replied.
“No, you did your best,” the Frontier crew said, trying to reassure the air traffic controller.Sources told the newspaper that the pilot and co-pilot were killed, and pictures showed the CRJ-900 plane tilting in the air.The plane, which had 72 passengers and four crew members on board, was traveling at about 24 miles per hour when it collided with the truck that was responding to an emergency involving another plane.Officials told ABC News that 11 passengers on the Air Canada plane and two first responders were taken to hospital.Moments before the accident, the pilots of United Flight 2384 aborted takeoff because an anti-icing warning light appeared on the dashboard, according to CBS News. Pilots reported a foul odor in the cabin that made flight attendants feel ill.
