LaGuardia plane crash latest: Video shows horrifying moment of impact as Trump official issues seatbelt warning – UK Times

A senior Trump administration official alleges the Democratic immigration agenda is to blame for Sunday’s fatal crash at LaGuardia.

Speaking with Fox Business, Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler claimed the ongoing partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security contributed to the crash, which she painted as a casualty of a demand for “open borders.”

“The Democrats, again, are exacting tremendous pressure on a system at the time when you least need it, when national security, when airport safety, is involved,” Loeffler said. “Democrats want to defund DHS at the expense of the American people, of the safety of the American people. We see it playing out across this country.”

The ongoing shutdown is indeed a result of hardball negotiations from Democrats, but they are seeking new legal safeguards and tactics reforms at DHS, rather than a new immigration policy, in the wake of agents fatally shooting two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Here’s more info on what’s driving the shutdown conversation.

“Stop, stop, stop! Truck 1, stop!” the controller can be heard shouting in audio recording.

It came too late to prevent the CRJ-900 jet from slamming into the emergency vehicle on Runway 4 around 11:40 p.m. The ground vehicle, identified as “Truck 1,” had been cleared to cross the tarmac while responding to a separate emergency involving a United Airlines flight. A voice on the air traffic recording can be heard admitting they “messed up.”

Video footage also showed the horrific collision when the speeding jet crashed into the fire truck, which tried to avoid the plane at the last second.

More details in our full story.

The agency added that in keeping with international protocol, it will not be able to comment on the investigation, which is being led by its U.S. counterpart, the National Transportation Safety Board.

Two pilots, including 30-year-old Antoine Forest, were killed and 41 people were injured late Sunday night when an Air Canada Express flight collided with a Port Authority fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

The Bombardier CRJ-900, operated by Jazz Aviation, was arriving from Montreal with 76 passengers and crew when it struck the emergency vehicle on Runway 4 at approximately 11:40 p.m. The truck had been cleared to cross the active runway while responding to a separate incident involving a United Airlines flight.

While federal authorities have not yet released the names of the flight crew, family members have begun identifying the victims. Both the pilot and co-pilot were based in Canada, according to Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are conducting a joint investigation into the collision. The airport officially reopened at 2 p.m., though officials cautioned that only one of its two runways is currently operational.

Jasmine Fernández reports.

Multiple passengers aboard Sunday’s Air Canada flight that crashed at LaGuardia Airport have described its pilots suddenly slowing the plane as it traveled down the runway where it collided with an emergency truck.

“Just as the plane touched down, the pilot braked extremely hard,” Clément Lelièvre told The Canadian Press on Monday. “I don’t know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes.”

Both pilots were killed in the crash, according to officials.

Prior to Sunday’s crash at LaGuardia, there was another concerning safety incident at a New York-area airport.

A commercial airliner and a cargo plane came perilously close to colliding on intersecting runways at Newark Liberty International Airport during an aborted landing last Tuesday.

The close call involved an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 that flew over a FedEx Boeing 777 at the busy New York City-area airport. The two planes were reportedly about 300 feet apart.

According to the FAA, an air traffic controller instructed Alaska Airlines Flight 294, arriving from Portland, Oregon, to perform a “go around” – meaning to discontinue its landing approach and circle for a new attempt.

Pilots flying into LaGuardia were reportedly concerned about poor communication and a fast pace of operations at the airport in the years leading up to Sunday’s fatal crash.

“The pace of operations is building in LGA. The controllers are pushing the line,” the pilot said in a report to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, obtained by CNN. “On thunderstorm days, LGA is starting to feel like DCA did before the accident there.”

The comment was a reference to a catastrophic collision last year between a military helicopter and a commercial jet near a Washington-area airport that killed 67 people.

In 2024, another report in the database described two planes nearly colliding on the ground at LaGuardia, allegedly because of inaccurate instructions from the airport’s air traffic controllers.

The claims paint a further picture of dysfunction at the busy New York hub, where two Delta jets collided on the runway last year.

Trump administration Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy visited LaGuardia International Airport on Monday, where he inspected the crash site with NTSB investigators and spoke alongside New York officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“I am praying for the victims and all those impacted by the tragic crash of Air Canada Express 8646 at LaGuardia Airport,” he wrote on X.

Rebecca Liquori, a nurse based in Baldwin, New York, was one of the survivors of Sunday’s crash at LaGuardia.

Speaking with CNN on Monday night, she described the Air Canada flight from Montreal arriving in New York with a harsh landing.

“We had a very rough landing,” she said. “It almost felt like the plane jolted, and after that you hear the pilot try to brake, and it was like a grinding noise. And then after that it was a huge boom and we all jolted out of our seats. It was an eerie couple of seconds and then we realized, okay, the flight crew is not able to give us guidance.”

Liquori said emergency slides did not deploy and she had to jump off the wing of the plane with help from first responders.

“I’m just grateful to be alive,” Liquori, who was in Canada to visit a friend’s new baby, added. “I’m grateful that I was able to go home and kiss my sons, be able to hug them, because when I was on the plane, I didn’t think that I was ever going to get that opportunity again.”