One of LaGuardia Airport’s two runways will remain closed for several days while National Transportation Safety Board investigators probe the deadly collision between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.
The jet’s two pilots were killed and more than 40 people were injured in the collision, which sheared off the front of the plane and caused it to pitch backwards on its tail, where it remained on Runway 4 Monday.
“There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of debris,” Ms. Homendy said.
The damaged firetruck, clobbered by the speeding jet, remains at the scene.
Ms. Homendy said investigators on Monday managed to recover the jet’s data recorders, which are stored in the tail section.
But she told reporters at a press conference in the airport the investigation has just begun and because of that, there was little preliminary information she could offer to the media.
“We don’t speculate, we don’t take one person at their word. We verify that information carefully before we provide it,” Ms. Homendy said.
She said the probe would include examining staffing in the control tower. At the time of the accident, a controller was managing the ground traffic as well as incoming and outbound planes.
Ms. Homendy would not say how many controllers were working in the tower at the time of the accident.
The controller who was managing the plane and the firetruck was on a “mid shift,” she said, which typically begins at 10:30 p.m. and ends at 6:30 a.m.
The accident occurred around 11:45 p.m.
Moments before, the controller cleared a firetruck to cross Runway 4.
As the Air Canada jet, carrying 72 passengers and crew, landed on the same runway, the controller alerted the firetruck to stop.
The truck sped across the runway. The jet plowed into the firetruck and the impact destroyed the cockpit. It’s not clear whether the firetruck heard the air traffic controller.
The two crew members in the truck survived and are hospitalized.
A flight attendant, still strapped to a jump seat, was ejected from the plane but survived with serious injuries.
Investigators are collecting evidence to take back to the NTSB lab and are taking photos of the wreckage.
The probe was slowed by the current backlog at airport TSA checkpoints, which delayed the arrival of at least on investigator, Ms. Homendy said.
Radio-Canada sources identified the pilots as Antoine Forest from Coteau-du-Lac, 30, of Quebec, and MacKenzie Gunther, whose age was not provided.
