Investigators looking into the fatal crash between an Air Canada jet and a LaGuardia Airport fire truck believe an air traffic controller may have stepped away from his desk moments before the collision.
Sources familiar with the ongoing investigation told the New York Times that officials are focusing on an emergency call made from a separate jet in the lead-up to the crash on March 22.
Insiders say a number of potential mistakes and factors may have contributed to the crash, including the way in which air traffic controllers (ATC) worked on the night of the collision.
Moments before the crash, ATC heard an emergency call from a United flight reporting a strange ‘odor’ from its cockpit.
When air traffic control workers took the emergency call, the layout of the control tower meant that a staffer would likely have needed to leave their desk to get to the landline phone across the room, insiders said.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said there were only two controllers in the tower for the late-night shift, raising the risk that the staffer watching the correct section of the runway was away from his desk immediately before the crash.
The emergency call from the United jet led ATC to deploy a convoy of six fire trucks, but the leading truck driver appeared to not hear a controller’s desperate pleas for them to stop when the Air Canada jet crossed its path.
Previously released audio from the incident showed a controller panicking as they saw the crash unfolding, telling the fire truck: ‘Truck One, stop, stop, stop!’
Investigators looking into the fatal crash between an Air Canada jet and a LaGuardia Airport fire truck on March 22 believe an air traffic controller may have stepped away from his desk moments before the collision
The crash killed two pilots in the Air Canada jet and hospitalized 40 others, marking the first fatal accident at LaGuardia in 34 years.
According to sources within the investigation speaking with the Times, officials are also questioning whether the positioning of the fire trucks, communication device malfunctions, and heavy rainfall may have played a role in the tragedy.
Interviews have been conducted with a number of people involved, including the controllers on duty in the tower and firefighters in the lead truck, who were hospitalized in the wreck.
Insiders said investigators are examining whether the lead truck failed to brake at a stop line on the runway, or if the driver missed instructions from air traffic control.
This could possibly be due to truck operators pressing a microphone key at the same time ATC gave them orders, ‘bleeping out’ the instructions, the report said.
The huge trove of data collected by the NTSB for the investigation is also being used to reconstruct the driver’s line of sight immediately before the crash, to determine whether they were blocked from seeing the oncoming jet.
Insiders say a number of potential mistakes and factors may have contributed to the crash, including the way in which air traffic controllers (ATC) worked on the night of the collision
National Transportation Safety Board officials investigate a crash site on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on the morning of March 23, 2026
Questions about ATC staff potentially walking away from their desks come as it emerged that the call from the United jet across the runway included an ’emergency’ report from the cockpit, indicating they needed immediate action.
While ATC staff often use dedicated radio frequencies for such calls, on the night of the crash LaGuardia officials opted to use a landline because the United pilots couldn’t reach airport operations personnel.
Sources said the use of the landline may have dragged an ATC staffer away from their desk, complicating air traffic processes that were already compounded by stormy weather and a high volume of flights arriving at the airport.
This included an air traffic controller instructing half a dozen other planes in the one minute before the fire truck asked permission to cross the runway, while also conducting reports on a separate runway at the same time.
The loss of focus may have proved fatal, as horror surveillance footage showed the Air Canada jet slammed on the brakes as it careened into the fire truck in the late-night collision.
The plane was traveling at approximately 150mph when it struck the fire truck during heavy rainfall, and the footage showed a huge splash of water as the collision sent the truck flipping across the runway.
Audio from the air traffic control showed workers yelled ‘stop, stop, stop!’, seconds before impact.
Air Canada pilots Mackenzie Gunther, 30, (left) and Capt. Antoine Forest, 24, (right) were killed in the crash. Their bodies have since been repatriated to Canada
Flight attendant Solange Tremblay was strapped into a jump seat and violently thrown over 330 feet outside of the aircraft, but miraculously survived the incident
The fire truck was completely destroyed by the wreck, and the pilot and co-pilot in the Air Canada aircraft were killed
Addressing the plane seconds later, the air traffic controller said: ‘JAZZ 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.’
The pilot of a nearby Frontier plane then asked if they should return to their gate, saying: ‘We got stuff in progress for that man, that wasn’t good to watch.’
‘Yeah, I tried to reach out to them. We were dealing with an emergency, and I messed up,’ the controller replied, before the Frontier pilot tries to reassure him, saying: ‘No, you did the best you could.’
The pilots killed in the crash were named as MacKenzie Gunther, 30, and Antoine Forest, 24, described by officials as young and competent pilots ‘at the start of their careers.’
Forty others were hospitalized by the crash, including flight attendant Solange Tremblay who miraculously survived being thrown 330 feet from the crash while still strapped in her seat.
