(The Center Square) — Federal investigators say an alert system at LaGuardia Airport failed to notify an Air Canada jet before it collided with a fire truck on the runway, according to a preliminary investigation.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board provided an update Tuesday afternoon on its preliminary investigation into the collision between the Air Canada jet and a Port Authority airport vehicle on a runway late Sunday, which killed two pilots, injured dozens of passengers and prompted the airport to shut down.
NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said LaGuardia has a runway safety system allowing air traffic controllers to track surface movement of planes and vehicles, but said the system “did not alert” prior to the collision.
She said the ASDE-X, a surveillance system at the airport using radar and other technology, didn’t sound an alarm due to the “close proximity” of vehicles merging on the runway.
“Air traffic controllers should know what’s before them, whether it’s on the airport surface or in the airspace. They should have that information to ensure safety,” she said.
Homendy said there were two people in the air traffic control tower cab at the time of collision — a “local controller” and the controller in charge — but said investigators haven’t determined who was doing what at the time of the crash. She said it’s often standard practice to have one controller doing two jobs on overnight shifts.
NTSB lead investigator Doug Brazy said the flight’s cockpit voice recorder and cockpit data recorder — or ‘black boxes’ — were recovered and are still being reviewed but provided a basic timeline of the events leading to their collision.
Homendy told reporters the initial investigation was delayed because some NTSB members faced “significant” travel delays due to long lines caused by a partial government shutdown, which is affecting airport security.
She also cautioned reporters about making claims that ground and air traffic controllers at LaGuardia may have been distracted, citing reports claiming that it may have been a contributing factor in the collision. There is also no evidence of air controller “fatigue” which has also been suggested as a possible cause, she said.
“I would caution against pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” she said. “This is a heavy workload environment.”
There are likely multiple contributing factors to the fatal accident that investigators will be seeking to determine, she said.
“We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure,” Homendy said. “Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple layers of defense built-in to prevent an accident. So when something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong.”
