Pilot and copilot killed in collision between jet and fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport

Two peo­ple were killed and sev­er­al oth­ers bad­ly hurt when an Air Cana­da re­gion­al jet struck a fire truck on a run­way while land­ing at New York’s La­Guardia Air­port, of­fi­cials said.

The pi­lot and copi­lot were killed in the late Sun­day night col­li­sion, which crushed the nose of the air­craft, while around 40 pas­sen­gers and crew mem­bers were tak­en to area hos­pi­tals, some with se­ri­ous in­juries. Most have since been re­leased from treat­ment, au­thor­i­ties said Mon­day.

Two Port Au­thor­i­ty em­ploy­ees who were trav­el­ing in the fire truck al­so suf­fered in­juries that were not be­lieved to be life-threat­en­ing, said Kathryn Gar­cia, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey, which op­er­ates the air­port.

The pi­lot and copi­lot were both based out of Cana­da, Gar­cia said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence.

The air­port will re­main closed un­til at least 2 p.m. Mon­day to fa­cil­i­tate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is be­ing led by the Na­tion­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board.

The fire truck was trav­el­ing across the run­way to re­spond to a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent aboard a Unit­ed Air­lines flight, whose pi­lot had re­port­ed “an is­sue with odour,” said Gar­cia, who de­ferred ad­di­tion­al ques­tions about the se­quence of events lead­ing up to the crash to the NTSB.

There were 72 pas­sen­gers and four crew mem­bers aboard the air­craft, a Jazz Avi­a­tion flight op­er­at­ing on be­half of Air Cana­da, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the air­line. The flight orig­i­nat­ed at Mon­tréal-Pierre El­liott Trudeau In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the ma­jor air­port serv­ing Mon­tre­al.

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.

In the mo­ments be­fore the crash, an air traf­fic con­troller could be heard on a ra­dio trans­mis­sion giv­ing clear­ance to a ve­hi­cle to cross part of the tar­mac, then try­ing to stop it.

“Stop, Truck 1. Stop,” the trans­mis­sion says. The con­troller can then be heard fran­ti­cal­ly di­vert­ing an in­com­ing air­craft from land­ing.

Air traf­fic con­trollers are not im­pact­ed by the par­tial gov­ern­ment shut­down that has caused long de­lays at air­port se­cu­ri­ty check­points in re­cent days. They have been af­fect­ed by past shut­downs.

As pas­sen­gers strag­gled out of the air­port in­to the dark ear­ly Mon­day, some de­scribed hav­ing ar­rived at La­Guardia hours be­fore their flight, hop­ing to beat the lines.

Ar­turo David­son said his Mi­a­mi-bound flight was on the tar­mac Sun­day night when fel­low pas­sen­gers saw the col­li­sion or its af­ter­math and re­ac­tions rip­pled through the cab­in.

The pas­sen­gers were soon told there had been an ac­ci­dent. About 20 min­utes lat­er, they were in­formed the air­port was clos­ing and they must re­turn to the ter­mi­nal, he said lat­er Mon­day, gaz­ing at a de­par­ture board filled with can­cel­la­tions.

“I don’t think we’re go­ing at two,” he sighed, re­fer­ring to the time Mon­day af­ter­noon that of­fi­cials gave as the ear­li­est for re­open­ing La­Guardia.

La­Guardia was 19th busiest in 2024 out of more than 500 U.S. air­ports, with over 16.7 mil­lion pas­sen­gers board­ing there, ac­cord­ing to a 2025 FAA data­base.

The air­port, which opened to com­mer­cial traf­fic in 1939, cov­ers 680 acres (275 hectares) and bor­ders Flush­ing and Bow­ery bays in Queens. The Port Au­thor­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey de­scribed it as “one of the na­tion’s lead­ing do­mes­tic gate­ways for busi­ness and leisure trav­el” in its 2024 Air­port Traf­fic Re­port. —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ry by JAKE OF­FEN­HARTZ and JEN­NIFER PELTZ | As­so­ci­at­ed Press