A runway collision at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late on Sunday killed two people, injured dozens more and shut down one of the busiest domestic airports in the region.
The crash occurred when an Air Canada regional jet collided with a Port Authority fire truck while landing Sunday night, killing the plane’s pilots. Investigators were working to determine the cause of the accident Monday morning.
The disruption was expected to ripple across the country at the start of the workweek, with hundreds of flights cancelled as of Monday morning. New York City officials urged drivers to avoid the area around LaGuardia, warning of road closures and traffic delays.
Forty-one passengers and crew members were taken to the hospital, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the airport operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference early Monday.
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She said 32 of them had been released and that some of the others had been seriously injured.
Two officers in the fire truck were among those hospitalised and were in stable condition, Garcia said. The truck was responding to a call from another aircraft whose pilot had reported an issue with odour in the cabin, she said.
The collision, which occurred around 11.40pm local time on Sunday, involved Air Canada Express Flight 8646, which had departed from Montreal and landed at LaGuardia late Sunday.
The CRJ-900 jet was operated by Jazz Aviation LP, which said in a statement that a preliminary passenger list indicated the flight was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.
The Federal Aviation Administration first issued a ground stop at LaGuardia early Monday as emergency crews swarmed the damaged jet on a runway.
A journalist saw police vehicles and fire trucks next to a white Air Canada Express plane with a sheared-off nose. A damaged truck lay on its side nearby.
LaGuardia, one of three major airports serving the New York City area, is a critical hub for the busy northeast corridor, with nearly 900 departures and arrivals each day, according to the Port Authority.
About half the flights to and from LaGuardia are for Delta Air Lines, which said Monday that it had cancelled flights through the afternoon and that more cancellations could follow.
The CRJ-900 plane, which was coming from Montreal, struck the vehicle at a speed of about 39km/h, said flight tracking website Flightradar24, which last recorded data at 3.37am Irish time.
Photos show visible damage to the nose of the plane, which was tilted upward.
Authorities and emergency agencies did not offer any immediate comments on injuries.
The National Transportation Safety Board is launching a team on Monday to investigate the collision, it said in a post on X.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the airport was expected to remain shut until 6pm Irish time on Monday.
Flightradar24 said 18 flights had been diverted to other airports, mostly in the New York area, or returned to their point of origin.
The plane involved in the collision was operated by Air Canada’s regional partner Jazz, which is owned by Chorus Aviation.
- This article originally appeared in The New York Times
