An Air Canada jet carrying 76 folks touched down and slammed into a hearth truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday evening, killing its two pilots and injuring many extra.
Kathryn Garcia, government director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, stated all who have been on the airplane — 72 passengers and 4 crew — have been accounted for.
“Sadly, the 2 pilots are confirmed deceased and notifications are being made by Air Canada’s care crew presently,” Garcia advised a information convention within the pre-dawn hours of Monday. She added each have been based mostly out of Canada.
Garcia stated 41 folks have been taken to 2 hospitals in Queens and that 32 have been ultimately launched. 9 remained in care, together with some in critical situation, she stated.
Two Port Authority staff travelling within the fireplace truck suffered non-life-threatening accidents, stated Garcia.
The airplane is operated by Air Canada Categorical service Jazz Aviation, and the flight was designated AC8646.
An Air Canada Jet sits on the runway at LaGuardia Airport, Monday, March 23, 2026, after colliding with a Port Authority plane rescue and firefighting automobile in New York.Ryan Murphy | AP Photograph
Air Canada in an announcement, stated it has officers en path to LaGuardia to help within the investigation, including, “We’re deeply saddened by the lack of two Jazz staff, and our deepest condolences exit to all the Jazz group and their households.”
Catastrophe struck at shortly after 11:30 p.m. because the airplane touched down after its journey from Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Worldwide Airport.
The firefighting truck was responding to a separate incident when it was hit. Garcia confirmed it was a United Airways flight that had a problem with odour on takeoff.
She deferred extra questions concerning the sequence of occasions main as much as the crash to the Nationwide Transportation Security Board.
An Air Canada jet sits on the runway at LaGuardia Airport, Monday, March 23, 2026, after colliding with a Port Authority automobile in New York.Ryan Murphy | AP Photograph
Photographs from the scene present the jetliner on the bottom, surrounded by purple rescue automobiles, within the glare of moveable floodlights. It sits on its tail, its crumpled nostril is pointed towards the sky, the cockpit peeled again all the best way again to the facet home windows, exposing a shredded tangle of wires and flight controls.
Stairways used to evacuate passengers from plane have been seen pushed as much as the emergency exits on the white jet, the Air Canada Categorical livery emblazoned alongside the fuselage and tail of the CRJ-900.
A closely broken neon yellow fireplace truck was seen close by, laying on its facet.
A Port Authority plane rescue and firefighting automobile lays on its facet off of runway 4 after colliding with an Air Canada jet after it landed at LaGuardia Airport, Monday, March 23, 2026, in New York.Ryan Murphy | AP Photograph
Within the moments earlier than the crash, airport controllers have been coping with an emergency after a United Airways flight aborted its takeoff and reported an odd odour onboard.
A overview of publicly obtainable air visitors management recordings by The Canadian Press suggests the odour made some flight attendants really feel ailing. LaGuardia controllers have been additionally mobilizing a stair truck in case the airplane wanted to let folks off.
One air visitors management could possibly be heard on a radio transmission giving clearance to a automobile to cross a part of the tarmac, then making an attempt to cease it.
Officers study the realm round an airport fireplace truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport after a collision with an Air Canada jet that had simply landed, Monday, March 23, 2026, in New York.Ryan Murphy | AP Photograph
“Cease, Truck 1. Cease,” the transmission says. The controller can then be heard frantically diverting incoming plane from touchdown.
Within the aftermath of the tragedy, one staffer sought to console one other.
“That wasn’t good to observe,” says one.
“I do know. I attempted to succeed in out,” says the second particular person. “We have been coping with an emergency earlier.”
“You probably did the very best you would,” says the primary.
The CRJ-900 is taken into account a workhorse feeder jet historically linking areas to larger hub airports.
It’s designed for 76 to 90 passengers for brief and medium-haul routes. It has a slender, lengthy fuselage, two-rear mounted turbofan engines and a T-shaped tail, which means the horizontal stabilizer sits excessive on the vertical fin.
Early Monday, some passengers who had arrived at LaGuardia hours earlier than their flights hoping to beat safety strains in the course of the ongoing authorities funding lapse straggled out of the airport, rebooked for Tuesday.
Others have been hastening to different airports, so far as Lengthy Island MacArthur in suburban Ronkonkoma, to attempt to catch their flights.
Port Authority Govt Director Kathryn Garcia speaks throughout a information convention at LaGuardia Airport after a collision between an Air Canada jet that had simply landed and a Port Authority fireplace truck, Monday, March 23, 2026, in New York.Ryan Murphy | AP Photograph
Garcia stated the airport was to stay closed till at the very least 2 p.m. Monday to facilitate the investigation, which was being led by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board.
On social media, Canadian Transport Minister Steven McKinnon wrote that Canada is working carefully with U.S. authorities as they examine.
“Aviation security stays our highest precedence,” he stated.
LaGuardia is among the three main airports serving the New York Metropolis area. Situated within the borough of Queens, it sits on the sting of Flushing Bay, east of Manhattan, with two foremost intersecting runways. This can be very busy given its proximity to Manhattan and handles a heavy load of largely home flights.
LaGuardia was nineteenth busiest in 2024 out of greater than 500 U.S. airports, with over 16.7 million passengers boarding there, in keeping with a 2025 FAA database.
The report by The Canadian Press was first printed March 23, 2026.
— By Aaron Sousa, Nick Murray and Dean Bennett, with recordsdata from The Related Press