NTSB: A multitude of factors likely led to deadly LaGuardia collision

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) held a second briefing, on March 24, 2026, that offered further details surrounding the fatal collision between an Air Canada Express CRJ-900 and a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport (LGA), with investigators predicting the cause will likely prove to be the result of multiple contributing factors, not any single failure.The Air Canada regional jet struck the fire truck on the runway while landing at LGA in New York at 11:38 local time on March 22, killing the two pilots and injuring dozens more.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, speaking at the agency’s second briefing on the crash, said investigators typically find “a multitude of factors” in accidents and the NTSB fully expects that to be the case in this incident as well.

A central focus of the update was LaGuardia’s Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, or ASDE-X. Homendy said the system did not issue an alert before the collision that could have warned the controller sooner of the conflict between the airliner and the fire truck, but she did not describe the technology as having failed. Instead, she said the system was unable to generate a high-confidence track because of the number of emergency vehicles near the runway, making it difficult for the technology to sort out what was happening on the surface. The fire truck struck by the airplane did not have a transponder, which further limited the system’s ability to identify the conflict.

Investigators said the sequence unfolded quickly. Preliminary information indicates the controller cleared the fire truck to cross Runway 4 about 20 seconds before the collision, then attempted to stop the truck. The NTSB said investigators are still working to determine whether the fire truck crew heard the stop instruction or tried to avoid the aircraft. The agency has recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ and sent them to Washington, DC, for download and analysis.

The board also made clear that the crash developed in a busy and complex operating environment. Two controllers were in the tower cab at the time, according to investigators, as is standard procedure for the midnight shift at LGA. One controller had signed in at 10:45 p.m., about an hour before the crash, and the controller in charge had clocked in at 10:30 p.m., with the controller in charge also handling clearance delivery, a staffing arrangement described as standard for late-night operations.The weather at the time of the collision included reduced visibility in a busy nighttime surface environment. From the NTSB’s preliminary readout of the CVR, it does not appear the CRJ pilots ever saw the fire truck prior to the collision.

In the minutes leading to the collision, controllers were dealing with a separate emergency involving a United Airlines aircraft that had aborted its take off and whose cabin crew reported fumes or an odor in the cabin that was making flight attendants ill. The emergency vehicles were responding to that incident when the lead fire truck entered the runway.

Homendy also pointed to broader operational strain around the investigation itself. She said some NTSB investigators were delayed getting to New York because of long TSA lines during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, including one specialist who was stuck in Houston for about three hours. LaGuardia is one of the nation’s busiest airports, with nearly 1,000 daily aircraft operations based on 2024 traffic figures, and runway incursions involving vehicles at LGA and other busy US airports have been on the rise.

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