The collision of a plane with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Sunday night left two dead and dozens injured, and forced the suspension of air traffic, authorities reported this Monday.
The pilot and co-pilot died in the accident, Kathryn Garcia, director of the city’s port authority, said at a news conference.
Forty-one people were taken to the hospital, some with “serious injuries,” although 32 have already been discharged, Garcia said.
Two aircraft rescue and firefighting officers remain in hospital in “stable condition with no life-threatening injuries,” he added. “They have been able to talk and we are notifying their families.”
AFP images show the damage suffered to the nose and cabin area of the Air Canada Express plane that had arrived from Montreal, on the airport runway.
The plane, a CRJ-900 operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of the Canadian company, hit the fire truck around 9:40 p.m. on Sunday (03:40 GMT Monday) that was responding to another incident, the port authority of New York said.
According to a preliminary passenger list, four of the 76 people aboard the plane were crew, Jazz Aviation said in a statement.
The port authority noted that the airport would remain closed until at least 2:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. GMT) “to allow for a thorough investigation.”
– Cancellations and closures –
According to the flight tracking platform FlightRadar24, the plane was “transiting along the runway when it hit” the rescue vehicle as it crossed its path.
New York’s emergency management authority warned there would be “cancellations, road closures (and) traffic delays” near the airport.
“Use alternative routes,” he urged in X.
The incident occurred as LaGuardia faced disruptions to its flights due to bad weather, the terminal said Sunday in X.
In addition, passengers have to wait in long lines at security checkpoints due to a funding problem for the US agency in charge of airport security.
LaGuardia, located in the New York borough of Queens, is the third busiest airport in New York and served 33.5 million passengers in 2024, according to data from the port authority.
The terminal underwent a renovation valued at $8 billion in 2024 to improve its aging infrastructure, with new terminals and runways.
