NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- Air-traffic controllers were helping a fire truck’s crew navigate a rain-slicked tarmac at LaGuardia Airport before midnight on Sunday when panic suddenly set in.
The crew had been summoned to inspect a United Airlines Holdings Inc. jet preparing to take off. The drama that followed would quickly become the latest in a series of deadly US aviation disasters.
“Stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1, stop, stop, stop,” a controller can be heard saying at around 11:37 p.m. New York time. “Stop, Truck 1, stop! Stop, Truck 1, stop!” the controller continues, becoming increasingly frantic.
What sounds like the same controller then instructs an arriving Delta Air Lines Inc. plane to perform a go-around, an aviation maneuver where a pilot aborts landing and climbs back to a safe altitude. The controller quickly turns to an Air Canada Express plane, operated by Jazz Aviation LP, acknowledging that the aircraft had hit the truck on the ground.
“I see you collided with a vehicle there. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now,” he said.
Almost 20 minutes later at around 11:55 p.m. New York time a person appearing to be the same controller can be heard discussing the airport’s closure following the collision with a pilot of a Frontier Group Holdings Inc. flight.
“That wasn’t good to watch,” the pilot can be heard saying over air traffic audio.
The controller replies that he tried to get the truck to stop, adding “we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Images posted to social media show a grisly site with wires and other debris dangling off the front of the aircraft. The plane initially stood mangled in its normal position, before tilting onto its tail because the front had come off.
Both the pilot and co-pilot were pronounced dead at the scene. Another 41 people were transported to the hospital, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The plane was carrying about 76 people, including passengers and crew.
The tragedy follows a string of fatal aviation disasters last year, including a midair collision between a regional commercial jet and a US Army helicopter outside of Washington that killed 67 people and a fiery United Parcel Service Inc. freighter crash that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen people onboard the aircraft and on the ground.
Videos and photos of the LaGuardia accident show an emergency vehicle, which the port authority said was one of its aircraft rescue and firefighting trucks, flipped on its side. The truck was responding to the United Airlines plane that was preparing to take off. The jet had declared an emergency after flight attendants reported feeling ill from an odor coming from the back of the plane.
The weather station at LaGuardia reported light rain with an 8 mile-per-hour wind out of the east-northeast at 11 p.m. and similar conditions at midnight, but with a little mist that had dropped visibility to 4 miles, said James Tomasini, a National Weather Service meteorologist in New York.
It’s still unclear what the total death toll will be in the crash. The cause of the collision will be determined through a comprehensive investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board that typically plays out over months.
There have been past incidents involving planes colliding with catering trucks and other types of vehicles while taxiing, but these events often occur at very low speeds and rarely result in fatalities.
These events are placed under a broad category of safety incidents known as runway incursions, which can range from relatively benign events such as a pilot edging slightly past painted lines they’re supposed to stop at before entering a runway, but there aren’t any landing or departing aircraft in the vicinity that pose an immediate safety risk to more serious situations, such as collisions.
The US Federal Aviation Administration disclosed 97 runway incursions in January, according to the most-recently available data posted to its website.
The NTSB is sending a team to investigate the collision at LaGuardia Airport. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy will be the on-scene spokesperson for the tragedy, according to a post to social media platform X.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford also said on social media Monday that they were heading to the airport.
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