Updated ,first published
New York: The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada Express regional jet with 76 people on board were killed after it collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport late on Sunday (New York time), authorities and US media said.
The Air Canada Express CRJ-900 plane, operated by its regional partner Jazz Aviation, was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members from Montreal, Canada, said Kathryn Garcia, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Jazz is owned by Chorus Aviation.
According to aviation tracker Flight Radar 24, flight AC8646 took off from Montreal and landed at LaGuardia at 11.37pm US time (2.37pm AEDT). The aircraft was taxiing at a speed of about 39km/h when it struck the fire truck, which was crossing the runway.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said 32 of the 41 injured had been released, while nine remained in hospital with “serious injuries.”
The fire truck was travelling across runway four to respond to a separate incident aboard a United Airlines flight, whose pilot had reported “an issue with odor,” said Garcia, who deferred additional questions about the sequence of events leading up to the crash to the NTSB.
Minutes earlier, air traffic control (ATC) audio from LiveATC.net indicated that a United Airlines flight had declared an emergency due to an odor onboard. Controllers advised the crew that fire trucks were already on site.
A second transmission then shows a fire truck was cleared to cross runway four, where the collision occurred, at taxiway ‘Delta.’
Moments later, according to the ATC audio, a controller can be heard saying: “Stop, stop, stop, truck one stop, truck one, stop.”
Two Port Authority employees who were travelling in the fire truck suffered injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening.
The airport was to remain closed until at least 2pm Monday (New York time) to facilitate the investigation, which is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Photos and videos from the scene showed severe damage to the front of the aircraft, with cables and debris hanging from a mangled cockpit. Nearby, a damaged emergency vehicle lay on its side. Stairways used to evacuate passengers from the aircraft were pushed up to the emergency exits on the jet, a Bombardier CRJ. The impact left the jet with its crumpled nose tilted upward.
The pilot and copilot were both based out of Canada, Garcia said during a news conference.
Two unnamed passengers told local media of the shock of the accident on the late-night flight, with one describing a friend with a broken nose and travellers hitting their heads against the seat in front of them.
According to CNN, LaGuardia warned earlier of flight disruptions due to the weather, with light rain and fog in the area.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said the airport was expected to remain shut until 2pm (New York time). Flightradar24 said 18 flights had been diverted to other airports, mostly in the New York area, or returned to their point of origin.
Air Canada referred Reuters to Jazz’s statement and said it was aware of the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The incident continues a series of accidents that made last year one of the deadliest in the past decade for civil aviation. In November, a UPS cargo jet crashed and exploded shortly after take-off from Louisville, Kentucky.
The crash of an Air India Boeing 787 in June, just seconds after take-off, killed all but one of the 242 people on board. In January 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an army helicopter near Washington in one of the deadliest US civil aviation disasters in decades.
LaGuardia was 19th busiest in 2024 out of more than 500 US airports, with over 16.7 million passengers boarding there, according to a 2025 FAA database.
AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
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