Looks like 2 fatalities and a few injured. Not good

6 hours ago, uhhello said:

Looks like 2 fatalities and a few injured. Not good

Pilot confirmed dead, looking at the front of the plane hard to believe others didn't perish. The ATC audio is very telling...Even when cleared to cross I still visually check.

Discretion if you need it.

Crazy and sad.

Complete cluster! Very little margin for error in our profession. Speechless at the lack of discipline exhibited by controller and fire rescue driver in this crash.

While this tragedy is not a military accident, it makes me hope that all of you here still serving our great nation, are ever vigilant.

6 minutes ago, bfargin said:

Complete cluster! Very little margin for error in our profession. Speechless at the lack of discipline exhibited by controller and fire rescue driver in this crash.

While this tragedy is not a military accident, it makes me hope that all of you here still serving our great nation, are ever vigilant.

Odd angle to see for the Firetruck but I am the only one that thinks the have some responsibility as well? I ALWAYS check final when cleared for takeoff and check both ways when cleared to cross.

What a terrible and utterly preventable accident. Based on the go-around call for Delta, it sounds like the audio is the tower freq, so everyone should have been on the same freq. If that is the case, the truck might have been on freq long enough to hear the takeoff clearance. The pilots would have heard the ground controller give clearance for the truck to cross the runway on which they were taking off with plenty of time to reject. And the obvious problem of the controller giving clearance to cross while a plane is taking off. Even if they weren't on the same freq, the truck absolutely should have been looking and seen an airplane on the runway and starting to roll towards them. Would be tough for the pilots to visually recognize the incursion in time to actually stop, especially at night and having a hard time recognizing that the truck hadn't stopped at the stop bars.

Anyone know if LGA has the runway status lights? Might have been too late in the takeoff roll to actually stop anyway since it's only a hundred feet or so from the stop bars to the runway center.

Seems pretty lucky that only the pilots were killed. I'd have expected a fireball with a plane hitting a fire truck that far down the runway. Maybe they had initiated a reject so they started slowing.

Were they taking off or landing?

Was landing

FA was thrown 330 feet from aircraft and survived with only broken leg.

39 minutes ago, uhhello said:

Was landing

FA was thrown 330 feet from aircraft and survived with only broken leg.

That's unreal. From the pictures I can't believe there were not more fatalities up front.

Buddy at UAL said the rumor going around is the controller was by himself doing ground and tower.

Just now, Sua Sponte said:

Buddy at UAL said the rumor going around is the controller was by himself doing ground and tower.

Just had a crew talk about this happening more and more often as we heard about this crash. I know I've experienced single controller ops quite a bit in ANC. I can't say I'm surprised by people not wanting to enter that career field. Couple that to the government shutdowns and we've got a bad situation going on for our ATC brothers.

44 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Buddy at UAL said the rumor going around is the controller was by himself doing ground and tower.

FAA said he 'wasn't the only controller on duty'. Statement is definitely not a denial of single ops.

12 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Buddy at UAL said the rumor going around is the controller was by himself doing ground and tower.

Talking with a controller friend, it's not all that uncommon for that time of night. Technically two controllers "on duty," with one off status resting while one controls the entire show. I know I've been at the busy early morning push in EWR and we couldn't raise anyone on clearance for a full route clearance. Jumped over the ground and the controller apologized, "I'm the only one here right now." Dude was reading full route clearance after full route clearance, then asking guys to read back only their squawk, because he was busty issuing taxi clearances. I assume he was issuing T/O and LND clearances as well, but I wasn't on that freq.

Our controller staffing hasn't recovered from the hiring freeze during rona, among other reasons... I still have no idea why they won't accept military controllers who over >30, seems like they're leaving out some qualified candidates. Relatively small pool, but seems like a terrible policy with the current shortages.

Does anyone know what the 'alarm' sound is when the controller is keying mic during the incident?

On 3/23/2026 at 12:46 PM, ClearedHot said:

Odd angle to see for the Firetruck but I am the only one that thinks the have some responsibility as well? I ALWAYS check final when cleared for takeoff and check both ways when cleared to cross.

100%

This is gonna get blown up into a controller/FAA manning issue (as it should) but a huge portion of the responsibility shared by the fire truck crew is going to be lost on most people.

Nothing against our emergency response folks but anyone who’s been a pilot long enough knows they kinda blast around airfields with very little regard for clearances. In the few times where I have ground egressed a jet, my primary concern after getting out was not being hit by a firetruck. And they aren’t pilots so they’re not going to have the same mental picture we might have after listening to a tower freq for a minute or two.

I hope this incident prompts more airfield ops training for emergency crews because in my experience their shenanigans on the airfield and generally garbage comms tend add more chaos to emergency situations than they alleviate.

4 hours ago, uhhello said:

Does anyone know what the 'alarm' sound is when the controller is keying mic during the incident?

ELT

7 hours ago, Pooter said:

100%

This is gonna get blown up into a controller/FAA manning issue (as it should) but a huge portion of the responsibility shared by the fire truck crew is going to be lost on most people.

Nothing against our emergency response folks but anyone who’s been a pilot long enough knows they kinda blast around airfields with very little regard for clearances. In the few times where I have ground egressed a jet, my primary concern after getting out was not being hit by a firetruck. And they aren’t pilots so they’re not going to have the same mental picture we might have after listening to a tower freq for a minute or two.

I hope this incident prompts more airfield ops training for emergency crews because in my experience their shenanigans on the airfield and generally garbage comms tend add more chaos to emergency situations than they alleviate.

Was always a huge concern in the Gunship, especially in our Hot Cargo area which could be very dark and isolated. I always briefed the crew, especially new folks, a plan to move away from responding firetrucks in case of an emergency. On more than one occasion a crew dog was nearly run over by an emergency vehicle.