"[The Jazz Aviation flight operating with Air Canada] came down really hard [and] stopped really quickly."

"We just had an absolute, like, slam."

"Everybody was flying everywhere. The plane was sort of veering off left and right."

"It was chaos. It didn't feel like there was anybody in control."

Air Canada Express Flight passenger Jack Cabot  

 

"It was human error, in my opinion. That was probably the root cause of this incident."

"We're looking at situations where guys have been working doubles -- starting at eight o'clock in the morning and working until midnight."

"It's not something that  you want to have too often. People lose their spatial awareness and their decision-making capabilities because of inattention or lack of  sleep."

"This is a very, very rare occurrence. I'd rather fly in the morning or midday or mid-afternoon. Then I know the controllers are hopefully more refreshed." 

John Gradek, aviation management, McGill University 

 

"We were honestly sleeping and then landing and then all of a sudden, boom."

"We woke up in shock. We just didn't know what to do. We were a couple of rows behind first class and everything at the front of the plane was pretty messed up."

Unidentified flight passengers

Investigators walk the site, Monday, March 23, 2026, where an Air Canada jet came to rest after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport, after landing Sunday night in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

 

The accident-waiting-to-happen at New York City's La Guardia Airport Sunday night left both pilots of the Air Canada Express flight dead at the scene when their plane crashed into a fire truck on the tarmac. Dozens of passengers among the 72 people aboard the plane were injured, several taken to hospital in serious condition. One of the air traffic controllers on duty took responsibility; a momentary lapse is all it takes. He had been guiding a fire truck to another plane on another runway that had reported a problem.

 

The air traffic controller, like all air traffic controllers in the United States, was overworked and undoubtedly lacking sufficient sleep to be able to perform his professional duties to the full height of their critical responsibilities. There simply are not enough flight attendants to perform this job properly. Each of these professionals undergo rigorous training, and of those who are accepted for training as suitable for the job out of many applicants who apply, many fail to graduate as full-fledged air traffic controllers.

 

 

 

An audio recording from the flight tower was of someone demanding that the fire truck stop. "Stop, stop, stop, stop. Truck One, stop!", the control tower official ordered. There was no way the pilot could have avoided the crash on Runway 4 at the last second, according to a Canadian airline pilot who remained unidentified. 

"Not in that phase of flight. They had just landed. They were decelerating. They were at about a hundred miles an hour."

"No, they didn't have enough speed to go around. They were in the ground phase. They didn't have enough time, nor did they have enough runway." 

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators on Tuesday inspect the wreckage of an Air Canada Express jet that collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport. (National Transportation Safety Board)

 

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is in the primary stages of crash investigation. And while it is leading the investigation, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board will have a team in place to support the investigation. Investigators are expected to question the air traffic controller who was involved in the tragic outcome of an ordinary flight, to enquire when he had last had a good night sleep to be able to function up to grade. 

 

They will determine how long the controller in the tower had been working prior to the crash; "Where this guy was in terms of his circadian rhythms, and whether he was  fully aware or whether he was distracted", suggested teacher of aviation management, John Gradek, who emphasized that the U.S. has a critical shortage of both ground controllers and air traffic controllers. 

 

Kevin Durkin, a lawyer who heads aviation law practice at a law firm in Chicago, offered his opinion that the problem is related to the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, having seen evidence first-hand as a passenger on three flights forced to abort landings because of equipment on runways. 

"Number 1, air travel has become increasingly popular in the United States."

"You have increasing flights, you have airports that are congested. You have flights coming in every so-many minutes, so-many seconds ... You put it all together and you have a recipe [for disaster]."

"[Hoping investigation of the Air Canada crash at LaGuardia leads to safety advances in] graveyard engineering." 

Site of crash at LaGuardia airport.