“Stop, truck one, stop!” an air traffic controller shouted moments before 11:38 pm EDT. Immediately after, an alarm was heard.
A pilot and a co-pilot were killed after an Air Canada Express passenger plane collided with a fire truck on a LaGuardia Airport runway on Sunday. At least 13 people were injured, among them two firefighters.
CCTV footage from the airport captured the moment of the collision. In the video, the fire truck and the aircraft can be seen moving along adjacent runways before meeting at an intersection. The force of the crash sent the truck rolling over while the plane skidded along the runway with smoke pouring from it.
The moment flight #AC8646 collided with the fire truck at La Guardia. pic.twitter.com/Y7NRwzUNOm
— HoCStaffer (@HoCStaffer) March 23, 2026
NDTV could not immediately verify the footage.
The collision took place at 11:38 pm local time at LaGuardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York City. A CRJ-900 aircraft operated by Jazz Aviation, a regional partner of Air Canada, was arriving from Montreal as Flight 8646 when it hit a fire engine from the Port Authority Police Department as the truck crossed its path on Runway 4.
According to flight tracking platform FlightRadar24, the aircraft was travelling at roughly 24 miles per hour (39 kph) at the time of impact. The plane was carrying 76 people in total, including four crew members, Jazz Aviation confirmed.
76 people were on board the flight, including four crew members, Jazz Aviation said in a statement.
It is the deadliest accident at LaGuardia Airport since 1992, according to reports. US aviation investigators, alongside Canadian authorities, have launched a formal inquiry into the incident.
Audio recordings from the air traffic tower show that a controller had cleared the truck, which was responding to a separate incident, to cross the runway before urgently ordering it to halt.
The transcript reads:
“Frontier 4195, stop there, please. (Pause.) Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, stop, stop. Stop, truck one, stop! Stop, truck one, stop.”
An alarm then sounds.
“Jazz 646. Jazz 646, I see you collided with a vehicle. (Inaudible) Hold position. I know he can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”
Shortly after, in what has become one of the more striking moments from the recording, a second controller can be heard saying, “Man, that wasn’t good to watch.”
To which the first controller replied, “Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my staff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Reacting to the incident, US President Donald Trump described the crash as “terrible,” adding, “They made a mistake. It’s a dangerous business.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney expressed his condolences, stating the event was “deeply saddening” and confirming that Canadian officials are working closely with US counterparts on the investigation.