Federal authorities are reportedly investigating whether an air traffic controller at LaGuardia Airport was forced to leave their console to use an emergency landline in the moments leading up to a fatal collision between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck.
The inquiry is one of several critical questions being pursued by the National Transportation Safety Board, The New York Times reports, as it attempts to reconstruct the events of March 22. The crash, which resulted in the deaths of two pilots, occurred when the aircraft struck a Port Authority vehicle as it was landing.
The collision marked the first fatal incident at the Queens airport in more than 30 years.
Sources familiar with the investigation told The NYT that officials were looking into whether the use of a “crash phone” — a dedicated landline often located at a distance from active workstations — affected the controller’s ability to monitor the runway during a pivotal window of time.
The staffing of the tower has remained a central point of the investigation. Federal Aviation Administration regulations require a minimum of two controllers for the overnight “mid” shift and the NTSB confirmed that two were present in the control room at the time of the crash.
Third and fourth controllers were also on-site in other parts of the building, though their specific roles during the emergency remain unclear, according to The NYT.
The NTSB is currently reviewing data from the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and the fire truck’s electronic data recorder. Investigators are also examining the possibility of communication interference, specifically whether a blocked radio transmission — caused by two parties transmitting at the same time — muted the controller’s last-second instruction for the truck to stop.
Beyond the radio transmissions, investigators are analyzing the physical environment, including whether the driver’s line of sight was compromised by the taxiway’s awkward angle or light pollution from the terminal. The board is also assessing how weather-related delays pushed a high volume of traffic into the late-night shift, potentially straining a crew accustomed to lower activity levels.
The crash happened while six fire trucks were responding to a United Airlines flight reporting a strange odor. What started as a routine request for help at the gate became a full emergency less than six minutes before the crash, when the United pilots grew concerned that passengers may need to evacuate on the taxiway.
Radio recordings from the night indicate the controller was managing half a dozen other aircraft in the minute before the collision. Shortly after granting the fire convoy permission to cross the runway, the controller appeared to recognize the conflict and issued a command to stop, but the lead vehicle and the landing Air Canada jet collided seconds later.
David Riley, a former controller, told The NYT that managing multiple roles at once can compromise a controller’s situational awareness.
“There’s no such thing as multitasking,” Riley said.
No passengers on the aircraft or firefighters in the convoy sustained fatal injuries. The board’s final report, which will determine the probable cause, is not expected for another 12 to 18 months.
