What we know about the LaGuardia Airport crash

Two pilots have died after a passenger plane collided with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

Photos from the scene showed the plane tilting backwards with its cockpit almost sheared off. The fire truck was on its side, surrounded by debris, wreckage and warped metal.

Authorities said 41 people had been taken to hospital, with 31 later discharged but others suffering serious injuries.

Here’s what we know.

What happened?

At around 23:40 local time (03:40 GMT) on Sunday, shortly after Air Canada flight AC8646 had landed from Montreal, it collided with a firefighting vehicle on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport.

The truck had been called minutes earlier to a separate incident on board another plane which had “reported an issue with odour”, according to Port Authority executive director Kathryn Garcia.

In audio from the air traffic control tower at LaGuardia, a staff member can be heard saying: “‘Truck One, stop, stop, stop!” in the seconds before the crash.

“We were literally like 100 meters away,” 23-year-old eyewitness Leo Medina told the BBC. “It was like the plane got cut in half.”

After the collision took place, authorities “immediately responded”, Garcia said.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating to determine what went wrong.

Investigators on Tuesday released details from the final three minutes of cockpit voice recordings and tower communications, including that controllers had cleared both the plane and a fire truck to cross the runway.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the inquiry was ongoing and would include interviews with the two controllers on duty on Sunday night.

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Homendy said that a ground radar system that could have provided an alert before the collision failed to do so. She added that the truck involved in the crash did not have a transponder, which would have helped the radar system detect it.

Calling the US air traffic control system “old” and in need of an upgrade, Homendy urged against assigning blame.

“Controllers should have all the information and the tools to do their job,” she said. “You have to have information on the ground movements, whether that’s aircraft or vehicles… this is 2026.”

She added that air traffic controllers had long raised concerns about under-staffing, describing the tower as a “high-workload environment” where, when something goes wrong, “many things have gone wrong”.

Who are the victims?

The aircraft – a CRJ 900 model – was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.

The two Air Canada pilots killed in the crash have been identified as Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther.

Local media reported Forest was 30-years-old and from Québec, while Gunther graduated from Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto in 2023.

“These were two young men at the start of their career, so it’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss,” Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bran Bedford said.

All others on board the plane have been accounted for, Garcia said, while adding that the sergeant and police officer who were inside the firefighting vehicle were in a stable condition in hospital “with no life-threatening injuries”.

“I visited them both in the hospital, as has the chairman, and they were able to speak and we’re notifying their families,” said Garcia.

Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani said he had “been briefed on the tragic collision”.

“I am grateful to our first responders, whose swift actions saved lives,” he said.

He added that the NTSB “is investigating the incident, and the City is in close contact with federal, state, and local partners”.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the incident “heartbreaking”.

She added: “Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and everyone affected.”

How will travel be affected?

LaGuardia is one of the busiest airports in the US, with over 32 million passengers passing through in the last 12 months.

By Monday afternoon, the airport resumed flights on just one runway after cancelling more than 600 flights in and out.

Delta, the largest carrier at LaGuardia, was among airlines experiencing disruptions at other airports, too.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia, said travellers “should expect residual delays and cancellations”.

It encouraged flyers to check with their airlines before leaving for the airport.