2 pilots killed as plane and fire-rescue truck collide at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, officials say

(CBS News)-Two pilots were killed and dozens of people were injured at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night when an arriving Air Canada Express plane and a fire-and-rescue vehicle collided on a runway, officials said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, said in a statement that the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the collision and 41 people were taken to hospitals — 39 from the aircraft and two Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting officers from the truck.

Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia told reporters Monday morning that initial indications were 32 people had been released but there were also serious injuries.

Garcia said Air Canada Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, had 72 passengers and four crew members on board.

CBS News Investigative Unit senior producer Pat Milton cited a source as saying it appeared the collision was an accident and there was no foul play or terrorism suspected.

LaGuardia was closed. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for the airport until at least 2 p.m.

CBS News senior transportation and national correspondent Kris Van Cleave reported the collision happened as air traffic control was also responding to a separate incident where pilots of United Airlines Flight 2384 aborted their takeoff when an anti-ice warning light came on. They reported an odor in the cabin and requested assistance from firefighters. The pilots said flight attendants were feeling ill and declared an emergency when no gates were immediately available.

Air traffic control apparently cleared the fire-rescue vehicle to cross the runway before telling it to stop, air traffic control recordings revealed.

An air traffic controller later talked about the collision with the pilot of a Frontier flight.

“That wasn’t good to watch,” the Frontier pilot said.

“Yeah, I know, I was here,” the air traffic controller responded. “I tried to reach out to my staff, and we were dealing with an emergency earlier and I messed up.”

“No man, you did the best you could,” the Frontier pilot responded.

Capt. Laura Einsetler, a pilot with more than 30 years of experience, called the deadly incident “very concerning.”

“It’s very unusual to have a situation where we’re landing on the runway and you have emergency equipment – emergency equipment operators on the runway itself,” she told “CBS Mornings.”

Van Cleave said the Air Canada plane, which was coming in from Montreal, had landed and was slowing down when it collided with the PA vehicle. The Air Canada plane, a CRJ 900, suffered significant damage.

Images showed the mangled front of the plane lifted into the air and its tail on the tarmac.

Timothy Henriksen, a passenger on a Frontier Airlines flight that wound up being grounded, told CBS News, “We stopped and then the pilot came on and said there’s been an accident with an Air Canada and a fire truck. … We got a really good view of the plane missing the whole front nose.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was “launching a go team” to investigate the crash. Garcia said the first team members had arrived at the airport.

Former chair of the NTSB, Robert Sumwalt, told “CBS Mornings” on Monday that the NTSB will look through air traffic control tapes, radar tapes, and cockpit voice recorder tapes from the airplane during the investigation.

“They will have witness interviews, they’ll interview the controllers,” he said. “So they will have a lot to be able to go on.”

Sumwalt estimated the investigation will take between 12 and 18 months.

Investigators will be looking into what the communication breakdown was that allowed the vehicle to be on the runway as the plane was landing, Van Cleave reported. They will also want to understand if the air traffic controller was working alone in the tower.