저자: Kevin · 외국인
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2026-03-23 LaGuardia 공항에서 Air Canada 8646(CRJ-900)이 소방차(ARFF)와 충돌한 사고를 분석. 관제사 1명이 지상·관제·비상 조율을 동시에 맡아 과부하였다는 인력 부족 문제 제기. 소방차가 횡단 허가를 받았으나 활주로 조명 등 시야 문제 가능성 언급. 사망 2명(조종사), 41명 병원 이송, 600여 편 결항. 투자 관련 자산 예측 발언은 없음.
다듬은 글
You are about to witness Air Canada 8646 uh crashing into an airport rescue and firefighting vehicle, also known as an airport fire truck. Here it is. Then we're going to get into the details of what happened, in addition to what Shawn Duffy just said, and potentially why the controller who was operating this situation in air traffic control was responding to a United Airlines emergency, landing traffic, departing traffic, and emergency vehicles crossing runways.
These are a lot of tasks for one controller, and now two people are dead with many others seriously injured, including an airline uh stewardess who was ejected from the aircraft as the front of the aircraft broke into pieces, and she was found on the tarmac strapped into her seat, fortunately alive, though with serious injuries.
Here is the accident. Fire convoy here. Aircraft from left to right on the screen. Here we go. Aircraft going into the scene. Here it is. This is a devastating failure. I'm going to play it one more time, and then we'll get into the facts and details of what happened. Absolutely terrible. At approximately 11:36 p.m., 23:36, air traffic control cleared the ARFF, the airport rescue and firefighting vehicle, to cross runway four.
Uh now, about 1 minute later, that very fire truck guys you saw was impacted by a CRJ-900 carrying 72 passengers from Montreal landing at LaGuardia Airport. There were four crew on board, two stewardesses and two pilots, both described as young men. We have the potential identity of one of them, but not of the second yet.
We'll talk about that in a moment. Now, why were all of these emergency vehicles lined up on the side of a runway? Mind you, this is a foggy, misty and light rain evening, which makes visibility already challenging enough, and now adding emergency lights to the side of the runway makes it even more challenging for pilots to potentially see that one of those vehicles have entered the runway, or potentially for those firefighting vehicles to actually see oncoming well, aviation traffic.
This is the intersection right here where the accident occurred. This is the taxiway Delta intersecting with runway four. The accident did end up carrying both the fire truck and aircraft to a taxiway Echo, which is where we end up with photos of the actual debris. Dozens on the plane were injured, though outside of the pilots, which is devastating enough, nobody else died.
41 people were taken to a hospital, including some crew. Well, one certainly at least one of the stewardesses. 32 have since been released, leaving us with nine still in the hospital. Both firefighters on the fire truck were also injured in the incident. Though it appeared that the aircraft struck the center of the fire truck, not that front sort of control cockpit, if you will, of the fire truck.
Now, since then we've had 600 flight cancellations. The airport was closed until 2:01 p.m. the next day. Remember this incident occurred at 11:37 p.m. Sunday evening. Sean Duffy just held his briefing as well, and we'll cover that in just a moment. This morning, Donald Trump also responded, sort of ad-lib, as he was boarding Air Force One after making comments on Iran, and said, "Quote, they made a mistake.
It's a dangerous business. That's terrible." And walked away. It's not entirely clear whom Donald Trump was blaming, but we'll talk about that in just a moment. What we know leading up to this was that it looks like both ground and tower were staffed at the time of the incident by just one controller.
Even though official statements have come out that both ground and tower frequencies were staffed by other individuals, at the time of the incident, it looks like there was only one controller running ground, tower, and the emergency coordination for the United Airlines flight. Now, before we listen to some of the audio, let's understand for a moment what was going on with United Airlines.
And this is where VAS Aviation has a fantastic breakdown of exactly what's going on here in terms of audio. United Airlines 2384 had two rejected takeoffs. This is when you set power to the engines, you set thrust. As a pilot, we practice these aborted takeoffs. We even abort prior to V1, and we're trained to kill throttle and maintain center line on aircraft before we take off, because we would rather be solving problems on the ground than in the air.
So, it is entirely normal, and if anything, it's safe for United Airlines to have conducted two rejected takeoffs. The problem is, after these rejected takeoffs, the plane wanted to return to the gate to diagnose what smelled like a foul odor. They described this as not smoke nor fire, but rather an odor that was making some of the flight attendants in the rear of the cabin feel unwell.
The problem is, the very controller who's dealing with arrivals and departures on the tower frequency and dealing with movement on the ground on the ground frequency is also trying to pick up the phone, making calls to gate agents to find out where he could find an available gate for this United Airlines aircraft to return and park at.
So, imagine being a controller, you've got monitors monitoring arriving traffic, departing traffic so you could send them off to departure frequencies, arriving traffic coming in introducing themselves to you and getting their landing clearances. At the same time, you're on the phone trying to deal with this uh you know, we need a gate.
These people are dying of a foul odor is what it seems like. They're declaring an emergency. And at the same time, people are telling you we don't have a gate available. Okay, let's get a ramp card out there, something where we could have basically a mobile staircase come up in case they want to evacuate on the runway.
And we're dealing with emergency crews who are coming from the other side of the aircraft or or of the airport to respond and they need direction to be able to cross the runway to get to the other side. That's a lot for one person to handle. I would almost call it impossible for one person to handle.
It does make you question why just one person was responsible for all of this. Did another controller go on a break? If both positions were staffed, did somebody take a 30-minute lunch break? And during these 30 minutes, this is when disaster struck? Why was only one controller handling ground, tower, and the emergency?
Wouldn't that have been a great opportunity for another controller to come back? Only time and investigations will tell, but listen to some of the audio here. United 2384 is declaring an emergency. The flight attendants in the back are feeling ill because of the odor. Uh we will need to go into any available gate at this time.
Okay, roger that. Hey, uh do that again. Do you guys have any This is the controller on the phone, by the way. Cuz you pick up a phone and you physically start calling people to get the answers you need so you can communicate those answers over the radio. Okay, 390 cuz now he's declaring an emergency.
They they want to get out. Yeah. Let me ask him. Give me a I'll call you right back. Okay, roger that. See, and now you're waiting for somebody else to call you back while you're trying to deal with all of your other duties as a controller. Hey. Hey, say it again. The water tower United says he he needs a gate but uh so now he's declaring an emergency.
Um but but the the ramp doesn't have a gate for him. Yeah, he they're now If we can get a stair truck if you need them to get off the plane. Okay, yeah yeah do that just in case they want to come off but uh 3090 now he's on taxiway alpha or just east of taxiway kilo. All right, thanks man. All right.
So, they're coordinating where to bring us a stair truck. This is the air traffic controller at the same time dealing with this as all of the other things that are going United 2384 uh the ramp doesn't have a gate for you yet but I'm trying to get in touch with the port authority to see if they have something.
Copy. And the United's actually being quite patient here. Our trucks are over there. They're going to bring a stair uh truck just in case you guys do want to evacuate. Let me know if you do. Copy. Yeah, we we'd prefer to wait on a gate but I mean again it's we only got so much time here cuz there's still a bit of an odor in the back of the airplane.
Again, they didn't declare that as smoke or fire but just something that was making uh flight attendants ill or nauseous. Uh the aircraft was also anti-iced so we're unclear if uh there's there's some form of odor that came from that. Uh it's worth noting sometimes when when you really gas up the engine and then you abort, some of those exhausts just sit around where the aircraft is.
Now, the aircraft obviously taxied off of the runway and then parked you know somewhere else on a taxiway as we just heard just east of Kilo. However, when an aircraft stands still and isn't moving, we've all smelled it before. That exhaust is pretty nasty. Although nobody mentioned that it wasn't exhaust smell so we don't know.
It could have been some form of other defect as well. Jazz 646 yeah. Delta 520 going to lane eight just hold short of Lima on runway 13 and just verify with the ramp that you'll be able to get in. Okay. Jazz JZA this is Jazz Airlines they're operating on behalf of Air Canada and they are getting the clearance to land.
Listen closely. Okay, hold short of Lima on runway 13 and we'll talk to ramp get back to you Delta 520. Thank you. I'm just verifying there's some shuffling of gates going on here. Look at that he's also dealing with shuffling aircraft around to different gates at the same time as he's dealing with all of the other issues we've mentioned.
to an inbound that have a issue. Roger. Jazz 646 go ahead. ILS for for Dallas for for Jazz 646. Okay. The ILS four this is the approach that they are taking. We remember we have four miles of visibility which is decent probably go visual here but very very normal to go for an instrument approach because you can really autopilot this in some aircraft all the way to the ground.
Something like this probably closer to about 200 feet above the ground you'll disconnect autopilot and you'll take over and you'll finish the run. This ILS is going to be a great way to program your approach especially since LaGuardia just received over eight billion dollars in renovations over the last 12 years.
I don't know how much of that actually went to air traffic control but the airport did end up getting a lot of lighting upgrades and feature upgrades radio upgrades so this ILS should be top notch assuming it was part of the upgrades. 646 number two, clear to land four. Clear to land number two, put down 646.
Those may be the eerie last words of either the first officer or the captain who made that transmission. Clear to land runway four. Yeah, 2384, do you have a gate available at this time? Otherwise, we will be probably requesting air stairs. So, now, in addition to having just cleared them to land, dealing with the gate shuffling of Delta, United's calling it, "Hey guys, how about us?
Did you get anything yet? It's still stinky over here." I'm not trying to minimize their problem, but think about the pressure this is adding to the controller. Give me 1 second. Yeah, and and you can sort of hear that frustration in his voice. Give me a second, guys. 2384 Stand by, United. They check in again.
Now, note, some of this has been edited to shorten some of the pauses and breaks out, so it makes them seem impatient, but they check in again. Even though the controller said wait, they probably waited for a few minutes, and then checked in again. And we're told to wait again. What is the vehicle needing to cross runway?
The controller, by the way, doesn't have apparently, track of who requested to cross the runway. This is not entirely unreasonable. You know, "Hey, a fire truck's going to call, truck number one's going to call and say, 'Ground, truck one, holding short of runway four at Delta.'" This just means we're waiting until you give us the clearance to go.
This is very normal. People listen to air traffic control, they do follow the rules, these procedures are in place. This is how it's designed to be done. And it's very common, actually, for the controller to go, "Okay, all right. Who was it he again?" I regularly in flying see air traffic controllers get overwhelmed.
Emergency vehicles calling on ground or are you calling on tower? Truck one and company LaGuardia tower. Truck one and company. Truck one and You can even hear in that attitude from the controller. Truck one and company cuz he's like, "Who's calling?" Truck one and company's calling. Okay, truck one and company, what do you want?
Like, you can kind of feel the frustration. Truck one and company LaGuardia tower. Truck one and company. Truck one and company LaGuardia tower requesting to cross four at Delta. Truck one and company, cross four at Delta. Cross four at Delta is an instruction. That is an acceptable procedure. And this means the firefighter is clear to cross the runway.
Now, we should understand a few things. Some people say, "Oh, but the I didn't hear the air traffic controller say the word clear." They don't have to. The rule is cross. That is an instruction. That is good as clear or hold. That is an instruction. That is as good as clear. So, in aviation language, you wouldn't necessarily say or you generally wouldn't even hear it, uh, clear to cross.
That's extra verbiage that really isn't necessary. This firefighter got a very clear clear to cross the runway. Now, some people say that the firefighter should have made more of an effort to look to make sure that they were clear. And this is where I wanted to take an image of an actual aircraft landing and what you might see at night.
Now, it's a little blurry, but typically you would see landing lights at probably close to this height, though the aircraft may have been even lower. And so, what I wanted to do to clean this up just because obviously this is not, you know, the actual image, is I wanted to add some rain and some background lights just to see what it potentially would have looked like for a firefighter as they quickly glance.
Now, this is I think too zoomed up. I think this plane would have been much further back in this image, but this is an AI image. I want to be clear with that. Point of it though, even with in the background Brooklyn or other parts of uh New York like subway or whatever. I'm not talking about the subway, I'm talking about the neighborhood because if you go look at LaGuardia, uh you can actually see uh that uh in the background you're going to see city lights.
This is runway four right here uh right here. So, it's runway 22 coming from that direction. It's runway four coming from this direction. It's actually a pretty advanced uh runway. It uh also has the runway status lights uh everywhere along uh not only the entrances, uh but also along the taxiways which we'll talk about those runway status lights in just a moment as well as indicators on the actual runway.
Uh but the aircraft uh would have been touching down right approximately here at these landing strips, these landing bars. Uh and the incident occurred approximately here dragging the aircraft to taxiway echo uh which this is uh only about 3,000 ft after touchdown. Uh and given that this was also a wet runway, it's very common not to fully slam on the brakes and to roll out a little bit more.
Now, what this doesn't show obviously is all of the disaster of the lights on the left of emergency vehicles and crew which makes it even harder to see what is that somebody in the runway or not. Uh in law enforcement back when I used to work with law enforcement, this was actually a very well-known phenomenon that drivers at night especially in rainy conditions can't see emergency lights very well.
And that's just sort of the nature of our eyes. Our night vision decays and bright lights skew our vision substantially. In fact, it's very common to want to lower the lights at a runway when you come in to land just because it makes it so hard to have depth perception or center your aircraft when there are too many bright lights.
This is the definition of bright lights in front of you. And even though it seems like this would be obvious to see, it was likely too late by the time that pilots realized it. Now, if the pilots heard on the radio the fire truck saying crossing runway four at Delta, if they heard this, they could have gone around.
But it's entirely possible because pilots are trained to listen for their call signal that they didn't hear this. This is why and how a lot of people have different opinions on this, but I just have a personal rule of thumb. If I'm ever in an aircraft, operating an aircraft, and this is how I've done it in the past, how I would do it in the future as well.
When I get my instructions to cross a runway, and I have done this many times, I will say, I'll get my procedure. November 6945 pop pop cross runway four at Delta. N64, November 6945 pop cross runway four at Delta. Sometimes I'll get that clearance way before I'm actually at that runway. So, I roll up to that runway.
I'm looking. I'm looking out of you know, through through my left window. Clear left. I'm asking my co-pilot, are we clear right? And I'm also visually checking. Clear right. Clear right. Look again, just like driving a car, and we say it. Clear left. Clear right. Look again. As my tires cross into that runway, I hop on the radio again.
Most people don't do this. I hop on the radio again. I go, "Crossing runway four at Delta 694 pop-up." I throw that in again as I'm doing it. Just in case somebody isn't listening for the call signal, they could hear, "Oh, what? Somebody's crossing the runway?" It's sort of an additional call out. Not often done at busy airports.
Some people actually get mad. It's too much noise on the radio. But, that's just a procedure that I personally have implemented as sort of a safety protocol. Now, it's not clear that the firefighters didn't do that. The firefighters, by the way, are sitting in a loud diesel fire truck. It is also entirely possible that they did not hear the communications to stop, which I'll just play I'll play in just a moment.
These uh airport rescue and firefighting uh vehicles, these these uh this equipment, uh they purposely come with noise-canceling headphones because when you're inside of them, they're very noisy. Off-road tires, diesel engines. They come with noise-canceling headsets so you can actually listen to the radio and communicate with other people inside.
Sort of like being in a helicopter almost. I've been inside of these before. They are very noisy. The investigation will say, "Were these headsets used or not?" Sometimes, if they're just quickly trying to get to the other side, maybe maybe they they didn't wear them or they had a you know, one ear on, one ear off.
Or they stopped listening. I Nobody knows. If that's all speculation and out of respect for the people whose lives were lost, we want to be careful with that until the full report comes out. But, it does look like when the controller yells, "Stop, stop, stop," that the fire truck does slow down over here.
I want you to see this this sort of move here. And then, you'll see him actually what appears to be slow down right there in that sort of that last moment. It's It's It's just too late. And it's really unfortunate. But, let's listen to the actual audio of that incident. Truck one and company crossing four at Delta.
Front See? in fairness truck one crossing 4A Delta. Now, he doesn't say it twice because he's already lined up. He's already there. So, it's not like you're going to say crossing runway 4A Delta and then again crossing runway 4A Delta. In fairness, he did call it out. 4195 to stop there, please. This is a problem.
The very next frequency is Frontier 4195 getting told to stop. Now, when you hear the controller yell stop, you have to think to yourself, is he talking to Frontier or is he telling the firefighter stop or is he telling someone else to stop? Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Truck one, stop. Stop. Stop. Yeah, 2384 is cleared in lane eight for 41.
2384 proceed to ramp. Proceeding. Now, truck one, stop. Truck one, stop. Now, truck one, stop. 4195, we're staying here. See, even Frontier pops in and it's like, wait, are you talking to us? We're stopped. Delta 2603, go around. Runway heading 2000. That's the second plane coming in to land that's being told go around.
You can't land. Delta 646 Delta 646, I see you collide with vehicle here. You just hold position. I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now. Is the runway closed? Delta 2603, go around. Runway heading 2000. All right, heading 2000, go around. Delta 2603. Cuz Delta hadn't responded to confirm that order yet.
Affirmative, tower. Truck 32, runway 4A is closed, correct? Yes. Go on to runway four now. Proceed on runway four. You have access. The other firefighters are asking, wait, so if the runway's closed, are we good to go out there or not? Obviously, get out there and help, but they're doing their protocols.
They're following procedure and they're asking to get that clearance from air traffic control. I want to say something before we look at the air traffic controller responding, I messed up. This is a big thing that a lot of people are talking about right now. And I just want to say something about aviation.
Everyone in aviation is a human. When I was trained in flying a jet aircraft, I was always told by other airline pilots, when you are clear to land, when air traffic control says you are clear to land, you're good. Don't worry about it. Just focus on landing the plane. Stop worrying about traffic. And that to me is one thing that just lives with me in infamy.
That we are told just focus let air traffic control do their job. Their job is to watch out for traffic. Because that's what happened at that Washington, D.C. crash, where we have a helicopter crash into an airliner. It was a massive loss of life. And I'm not saying that air traffic control is doing a bad job.
I do think they are underfunded and understaffed, though Sean Duffy disagrees. Sean Duffy says that LaGuardia is actually well-staffed, that they're just short two seats. They have seven people in training, 33 people employed. That they're giving 20% bonuses to controllers not to retire. And the money he's demanding from Congress isn't for more air traffic control money, it's just for upgrades, like infrastructure upgrades, to try to make the lives of air traffic control easier.
And then he punts on how many people were actually inside of air traffic control this night. He defers that to the NTSB and suggests that they'll let you know. And says that the rumor is false that only one person was in the tower. Okay, was only one person in the tower because the other person or you you was the other person eating their dinner?
We don't know. Only time and investigation will tell. Uh so, unfortunately, then there is audio uh of uh the air traffic controller about 18 minutes later saying, "I messed up." Now, this is really harsh audio audio because it it you know, it's this this clear admission that they made a mistake and they recognize they made a mistake.
Yeah, we got stuff in progress after that, man. That wasn't That wasn't good to watch. Yeah, I know I was here. I tried to reach out to my stuff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I'm No, man, you did the best you could. Yeah. That's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking. In my opinion, this is a case of a massive understaffing issue, which we've heard this many times before.
This air traffic controller, I feel so bad for him because he's now going to have to live with his entire life of potentially losing his job now, not being able to get another job somewhere else, and then the PTSD of waking up, reliving this over and over and over again. I feel so terrible for this person.
Yes, this airfield did have runway status lights. Maybe the fire truck ignored the bright red lights that said don't enter the runway because there's an obstruction in the runway. But then they were also given the clear to go. And this is where who do you listen to? Air traffic control or the technology?
When aviation as a community is taught to listen to air traffic control, let them do their job. I've always been a mind of the mindset of double and triple check. Now, LaGuardia control tower is rated an 11 out of 12 in the FAA. This is the busiest level in the world. Between 10 and 12, you're looking at the busiest airports.
Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta. Level 7 to 9, mid-size hubs. Buffalo, Washington National. 4 to 6 would be like Dayton, Concord. And then of course, smaller from there. But the bottom line here is that it is shocking that this in my opinion understaffing didn't lead to more lives being lost. This aircraft did not ignite, the wings did not explode.
We are lucky the wings were not hit. It is unfortunate that we had to lose two pilots to learn the lessons that will be learned from this tragedy. Now, understand as well one of the pilots has been identified. Uh he has been identified as Antoine Forest uh of Canada. This is one of them. And Secretary Sean Duffy does indicate that both of the pilots were {quote} young men.
And this was from the Sean Duffy and FAA briefing. So obviously we'll stay tuned for more information. But this is devastating. Now, I did see one comment that I wanted to respond to on the internet. And it is this individual who has these little music notes in his name. The only time a fire engine should be on the runway is if the entire airport is shut down.
Huge F up. Doesn't work this way. Somebody here who writes a comment like this is clearly not ever been involved in airport operations. Vehicles and aircraft cross active runway all of the time. Daily. Probably every minute this is happening. This is a very very normal whether they're taxi vehicles, buses, small planes, big planes, it is very normal for aircraft and vehicle to cross active runway.
They are done through the guidance of air traffic control and ideally the use of a little bit of looking. Keep in mind though, we can't say that the firefighters didn't look. Even though this AI image makes this plane look really obvious, it's entirely possible this plane was much further back with its landing light potentially just a single landing light looking no brighter than a billboard sign over here in the background of this elevated airport.
If you've ever driven by this airport, you'll know that the roads are actually lower than it and the airport is higher than the roads around the airport. This suggests you would have seen a lot more lights into the distance, potentially even against Manhattan's background in the distance, making one potentially aircraft landing light some F2, some F1 even harder to visualize.
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