An Air Canada Express passenger jet crashed into a firefighting vehicle as it landed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday evening, killing the plane’s two pilots and injuring dozens.
The plane struck an emergency vehicle on the runway that was responding to an issue with a separate aircraft, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference early Monday.
Forty-one people were taken to hospital, some with serious injuries, she said. Thirty-two people have since been released from hospital, Garcia added.
Airport officials identified the two people killed as the jet’s pilot and co-pilot but did not provide their names.
The firefighting vehicle, with two officers inside, was responding to an unrelated issue involving a United Airlines jet when the collision happened, about 11:40 p.m. Sunday. The two officers are in stable condition, Garcia said.
The Jazz Aviation Bombardier CRJ jet was operating as an Air Canada Express flight, arriving from Montreal, Jazz Aviation said. A preliminary passenger list for Flight 8646 indicated the aircraft was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members, it said in a brief statement.
It was not immediately clear why the emergency vehicle was on the runway at the same time that a passenger jet was landing. The National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents, said it was launching an immediate investigation, and LaGuardia Airport will remain closed until at least 2 p.m. Monday to allow investigators to work.
NTSB investigators had arrived at the scene as of 5 a.m., airport officials said.
Photographs showed severe damage to the nose of the Air Canada Express jet, with debris hanging from the front of the plane as its nose swung upward. Others showed severe damage to a nearby emergency vehicle, which appeared to have overturned, as a large team of responders surrounded the area.
LaGuardia Airport, in Queens, is the third-busiest airport serving the area, transporting more than 30 million passengers in 2024, according to Port Authority statistics.
According to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, over 500 flights scheduled to fly into or out of LaGuardia were canceled on Monday.
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