While some details are still emerging, this doesn’t look good at all…
In this post:
Air Canada Jazz CRJ-900 & fire truck have major accident
At around 11:40PM on Sunday, March 22, 2026, an Air Canada Jazz CRJ-900 and a fire truck collided on runway 4 at New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA). The plane belonging to Air Canada’s regional subsidiary was just landing on runway 4 from Montreal Airport (YUL).
The CRJ-900 ended up with its nose in the air, with the fire truck barely identifiable, and the plane’s cockpit largely destroyed. Air Canada’s CRJ-900s have 76 seats, with a crew of four (including two pilots and two flight attendants).
Following the incident, LaGuardia Airport was closed, given rescue efforts. My thoughts are with those involved in this accident, as there are reports of critical injuries, especially among firefighters. I’m also thinking about the pilots, because that cockpit situation doesn’t look good either.
How did this LaGuardia Airport accident happen?
To state the obvious, both planes and ground vehicles need permission in order to move around airports, given what congested spaces they are. So what exactly happened here? It would appear that this was an air traffic control error.
Listening to air traffic control audio from the accident, while the Air Canada Jazz CRJ-900 was landing on runway 4, the air traffic controller also gave the fire truck permission to cross the runway.
The fire truck had requested permission from the tower controller to cross the runway — “Truck 1 and company, LaGuardia tower, requesting to cross 4 at delta.” The air traffic controller granted that permission — “Truck 1 and company, cross 4 at delta.”
After a short while, the controller realized the error — “stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, Truck 1, stop, stop, Truck 1, stop.” Unfortunately at that point it was too late, though, and the plane and the fire truck had collided.
Ugh, for all the close calls we see, here’s one that didn’t end well. Reports suggests that the controller was working alone. Admittedly LaGuardia isn’t that busy overnight, but air traffic controllers certainly have stressful jobs, and even a small mistake can have major consequences, as we’re seeing here.
Bottom line
An Air Canada Jazz CRJ-900 and a fire truck collided on a LaGuardia runway, after an air traffic controller accidentally cleared the fire truck onto the runway while the other plane was landing. The scenes from the accident look awful, especially of the fire truck, and there are apparently critical injuries.
My thoughts are with those involved and their families, and I’m hoping for as few serious injuries and fatalities as possible. I also feel bad for the controller making an honest mistake — I can’t imagine how he’s feeling right now. Air traffic controllers have really gotten the short end of the stick in recent years, in terms of an immense workload due to short staffing. Of course at some point that’s going to impact performance.
What do you make of this LaGuardia accident?
Local media here in NYC reporting both pilots are sadly deceased. Terrible tragedy.
This should be deemed an attack on American soil by Canada, I think we've been patient enough with them but an attack crosses a red line where it means we have the rights to occupy them.
The gain from that is that Americans will get universal healthcare that Canadians have selfishly kept to themselves and away from American hands for so long.
Air Canada is at fault. They are so anti-American that they confused the air traffic controller. I hope no Americans were among the dead.
I pray for those who were harmed in this incident.
Unfortunately, given the photos of the accident, it doesn't look good for the pilots and maybe the FAs as well (depending on what side the FA in the front of the aircraft was sitting on). From what I've noticed, when these types of accidents occur, the fatalities are not immediately published. The firefighters were taken to a hospital, therefore it is easier for outside sources...
I pray for those who were harmed in this incident.
Unfortunately, given the photos of the accident, it doesn't look good for the pilots and maybe the FAs as well (depending on what side the FA in the front of the aircraft was sitting on). From what I've noticed, when these types of accidents occur, the fatalities are not immediately published. The firefighters were taken to a hospital, therefore it is easier for outside sources to track them and publish it. Meanwhile, if the pilots have indeed passed, it will take some time for them for authorities to be ready to publicly acknowledge that information (especially given that this accident occurred 3 hours ago near midnight).
Also, I flew out of LGA on Sunday evening as well. The airport was a mess. TSA lines were 2-3 hours long, and most flights were delayed, many significantly. It got worse as the day went on. There were a number of flights that took off just before this accident happened due to these delays. If the controller was indeed working alone, that is a huge workload to cover two active runways, one filled with a ton of aircraft waiting to depart.
That poor bastard in the tower. He was stuck all alone there, likely overworked, and now has caused this accident. Even though vastly overworked, I can't begin to imagine how awful the guy must feel. Let's hope it's better than it looks.
It's almost like people make mistakes when overworked and understaffed.
From the atc recording the truck was cleared to cross 4 and not told to stop until it was too late