The National Transportation Safety Board has published its preliminary report on last month’s deadly crash involving an Air Canada jet and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia airport, concluding communication failures and a lack of transponders in the truck played roles in the collision.
The report, released Thursday, said the truck’s driver heard instructions to “stop, stop, stop” over the radio, but did not realize the message was intended for them.
After the initial warning, the fire truck’s turret operator heard the controller say, “Truck 1, stop, stop, stop,” and realized the warning was for his crew. By then, the report said, the truck was already on Runway 4 as Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was landing.
The jet and the truck collided seconds after the plane touched down. Pilots Mackenzie Gunther and Antoine Forest were killed, and 33 people were injured, including six who had serious injuries.
Cameras won’t work in bad weather when visibility is poor. The answer is to force every ground vehicle that shares any space with aircraft should have a transponder and the airfield should have a working ASDE system. Surely it’s a necessity at an airport of that size?
I love how adding safety with a passive system built on old technology gets interpreted as “we should replace ADSB and transponders are unnecessary”