By Alyssa Lukpat and Mariah Timms
The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it was investigating more than one potential problem that could have played into the deadly LaGuardia Airport crash Sunday night.
The firetruck that collided with an Air Canada jet on a runway didn't have a transponder on it, which means the automatic system that would have generated an alert didn't work properly, said Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the NTSB.
"We rarely, if ever, investigate a major accident where it was one failure," Homendy said at a news briefing Tuesday. "Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident. So when something goes wrong, that means many, many things went wrong."
The crash happened before midnight Sunday when a firetruck was headed toward an aborted United Airlines flight. An air-traffic controller had cleared the vehicle to cross the runway but soon tried to halt it. "Stop stop stop stop truck 1," the person said over a radio.
The Air Canada Express plane, arriving from Montreal, struck the firetruck on the runway, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of other people. The NTSB declined to identify the two pilots on Tuesday.
Investigators didn't yet know whether the firetruck drivers heard the call to stop, Homendy said Tuesday.
The NTSB also said it was interviewing controllers Tuesday who were working Sunday night when the accident occurred and staffing logs appear to contain some conflicting information. Homendy said there were two controllers working who had clocked in about an hour before the collision and had taken on additional duties, which is standard for the midnight shift.
"The midnight shift, as a reminder, is one that we have many times at the NTSB raised concerns about with respect to fatigue," she said.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com and Mariah Timms at mariah.timms@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 15:33 ET (19:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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