By Zoe Sottile, CNN
(CNN) — An Air Canada plane traveling from Montreal collided with an emergency vehicle on the runway at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport in the late hours of Sunday night, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of people.
Emergency vehicles flooded the runway and passengers inched out onto the wing of the aircraft in the aftermath of the crash.
“It was just chaos in there,” said Jack Cabot, one of 72 passengers aboard the flight. “Everybody was hunkered down and everybody was screaming pretty quickly.”
Both Canadian and American authorities are investigating the collision, which follows several high-profile aviation disasters in 2025 — including a shocking midair collision between a military helicopter and a commercial jet near Washington, DC, which left 67 dead — that brought scrutiny to the industry and triggered calls for reform.
The crash marks the first deaths at LaGuardia, the New York area’s third-busiest airport, in 34 years, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said Monday.
Sunday night’s collision brought operations at the airport – a major transit hub that served over 32 million passengers last year – screeching to a halt before it reopened Monday afternoon. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled at the airport, and runway 4 will remain closed until 7 a.m. Friday, according to a public notice from the FAA.
The closure came as a Department of Homeland Security funding shutdown has led to TSA staffing shortages and massive lines at airports across the country, with some passengers reporting hours spent waiting to go through security.
There’s no evidence the shutdown contributed to the collision; air traffic controllers, unlike TSA agents, are still paid during this partial shutdown.
Here’s what we know about the collision.
Plane struck fire truck on runway
Just three minutes elapsed between when the Air Canada flight was cleared to land and when it collided with the fire truck.
Air Canada Flight 8646 took off from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport shortly after 10:30 p.m. ET Sunday night. The plane, with four crew members, arrived at LaGuardia about an hour later, according to the flight tracking site FlightRadar24. It was cleared to land at around 11:35 p.m.
On the other side of the airport, another plane had already reported an emergency.
United Flight 2384, scheduled to depart for Chicago, aborted its takeoff due to a warning light at around 11:18 p.m. As controllers worked to find a gate for that plane, the pilots reported an odor in the cabin had sickened the flight attendants, according to a LiveATC.com recording of air traffic control audio.
A Port Authority aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle dispatched to respond to the United flight requested permission to cross the runway where the Air Canada aircraft was landing.
The fire truck was cleared to cross moments before the collision, the audio indicates.
Just 10 seconds after granting permission for the fire truck to cross, the controller seemed to reverse course and frantically told it to stop.
“Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop, truck 1. Stop,” he said.
The collision took place about 11:38 p.m., just three minutes after the Air Canada flight was cleared to land. The controller can then be heard directing other aircraft to abort their landings and “go around,” noting the runway is now closed.
The Air Canada plane was traveling about 104 miles per hour just before it hit the fire truck, according to the last data point collected before the collision by Flightradar24.
Video footage and air traffic control audio are helping to piece together a rough timeline of the events that led up to the fatal incident.
11:17 p.m. ET – United 2384 cleared for takeoff. 11:18 p.m. ET – United 2384 aborts takeoff. 11:20 p.m. ET – United 2384 says it is heading back to gate, notes an odor and requests firefighters. 11:31 p.m. ET – United 2384 declares emergency due to odor. Approximately 11:35 p.m. ET – Air Canada Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, is cleared to land on runway 4. 11:36 p.m. ET – Fire truck 1 requests permission to cross the runway at the intersecting taxiway. “Truck one and company, LaGuardia Tower, requesting to cross 4 at Delta,” the fire truck radios the tower. 11:36 p.m. ET – Controller grants permission for the fire truck to cross. “Truck one and company, cross 4 at Delta,” the tower responds. 11:37 p.m. ET – About 10 seconds later, the controller urgently says, “Stop, stop, stop truck one, stop. Stop, stop…. Stop truck one, stop.” 11:37 p.m. ET – Air Canada plane touches down. Approximately 11:38 p.m. ET – Collision occurs. 11:38 p.m. ET – Controller issues first “go around” to tell incoming planes to abort their landings and circle the airport.Chaos and fear on board
Inside the plane, there was chaos as the flight landed and collided with the truck.
“We went down for a regular landing; we came in pretty hard. We immediately hit something,” said Cabot, one of the passengers aboard the Air Canada flight.
Another passenger, Rebecca Liquori, described a “very loud boom” as the plane struck the vehicle.
“Everybody just jolted out of their seats,” Liquori, who had taken a one-day trip to Canada for a baby shower, recalled. “People hit their heads, people were bleeding.”
Both Liquori and Cabot said without any direction from crew members, passengers decided on their own to open the emergency exit and flee the plane.
Video captured by Cabot shows passengers standing on the wing of the aircraft as they exit the plane.
At one point, the aircraft can be seen slowly tilting upward as debris hangs from its front.
“All passengers come this way, come this way,” someone can be heard saying on a loudspeaker.
“I messed up,” controller says in audio recording
Eighteen minutes after the plane collided with the fire truck, the air traffic controller in the tower appeared to say to a pilot on the ground radio frequency: “I messed up.”
The exchange took place with a Frontier Airlines pilot waiting to return to the gate who saw the crash.
“That, that wasn’t good to watch,” the pilot said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net.
“Yeah, I know. I tried to reach out to them,” the noticeably distraught controller said. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
The pilot responded, “nah man, you did the best you could.”
The air traffic communications will be a part of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board’s extensive investigation into the cause of the crash. Determining the root cause of an accident can take a year or longer and often involves multiple contributing factors.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the labor union representing controllers, did not provide comment when reached by CNN.
Pilot and copilot killed
The Air Line Pilots Association called the deaths of the pilot and copilot a “profound tragedy” in a statement.
“These pilots dedicated their careers to the safe transport of passengers, and we are all thinking of their families, loved ones, and colleagues at Jazz Aviation during this devastating time,” Capt. Jason Ambrosi, ALPA president, said in the statement.
The union said its accident investigation team is heading to assist the NTSB and is providing support to pilots and families involved.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the pilots were “young men at the start of their careers” at a news conference Monday.
One of the pilots has been identified as Antoine Forest. A family member, Jeannette Gagnier, confirmed to the Toronto Star on Monday that the Coteau-du-Lac native was one of the pilots killed in the crash.
Dozens injured
More than 43 people were hospitalized and “many” have since been released, according to Garcia, the head of the Port Authority.
In a video released Monday afternoon, Air Canada’s CEO said the final number of casualties remains unclear.
“We are working with authorities to confirm the number of injuries and if there are any other fatalities,” Air Canada President and CEO Michael Rousseau said.
Two firefighters inside the truck, identified Monday as Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez, were both hospitalized. Both injured firefighters are expected to recover from their injuries, Garcia said.
One flight attendant who survived the crash was found outside the aircraft – still strapped in her seat, a law enforcement source told CNN.
The attendant was identified as Solange Tremblay by her daughter, Sarah Lépine, in an interview with CNN affiliate TVA Nouvelles. Lépine said her mother suffered multiple fractures, was taken to the hospital and will undergo surgery for a broken leg.
“It’s all a miracle,” her daughter said. “At the moment of impact, her seat was ejected more than 100 meters from the plane. They found her and she was still strapped in her seat. She had a guardian angel who was looking right at her. It could have been so much worse.”
Investigation could take a year or more
Canadian and US officials are working closely together on the investigation into the collision, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday.
“The collision involving an Air Canada Express aircraft last night in New York that claimed the lives of the pilot and copilot, and injured dozens more, is deeply saddening,” Carney said on X.
Both the US and Canadian transportation safety boards are deploying investigative teams to the crash site, officials said Monday.
Additionally, Duffy and Bedford were headed to the airport Monday morning, Bedford said on X.
He extended his thoughts and prayers to the victims of the crash and their families. Bedford also said the FAA will continue to support the NTSB in its investigation.
At a Monday news conference, NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said investigators hope to know soon if recorders in the plane have usable data.
Earlier Monday, Port Authority, which runs the airport, and other emergency responders cut a hole in the roof of the plane to retrieve the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, she said. The NTSB verified that the cockpit voice recorder was not damaged.
The scene is still littered with wreckage from the collision: There is a “tremendous amount of debris” on the runway and “hazardous material” on the fire truck that was hit, Homendy said.
It’s also unclear whether the fire truck was visible on the airport’s surface detection equipment (ASDE-X) when it collided with the plane, Homendy said.
Days of travel delays
Sunday’s collision comes as air travel passengers across the country are already facing eye-popping wait times – with passengers even waiting outside the terminal, or in parking garages, at some airports. The lapse of DHS funding has left TSA officers working without pay, and more than 400 officers have quit outright, according to Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary for public affairs with the Department of Homeland Security.
The Trump administration has dispatched ICE agents to 14 airports Monday, in what it says is a bid to alleviate the TSA staff shortage. It’s unclear what roles the agents are performing.
At LaGuardia, stranded passengers camped out in the terminal overnight waiting for word on if and when they would be able to continue their journeys.
“We’re learning this information as they’re (the airlines) learning it,” a passenger from Chicago, Katie Rojas, told CNN. “Every few hours last night, everything was changing.”
Rojas said she hoped the airport would be on track to reopen Monday afternoon, as planned, so she can get home.
Another passenger hoping to make it to Chicago, Diana Cruz, said she was grateful for her safety: She and Rojas had been originally booked on the United Airlines flight that reported the warning light and the strange odor.
“Just kind of glad that we’re all safe now that we have learned about it,” Cruz said. “Because it could have been us, it could have been anyone at this point.”
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CNN’s Pete Muntean, Lauren Mascarenhas, Chris Boyette, Aaron Cooper, Paula Newton, Shimon Prokupecz, Carolyn Sung, Martin Goillandeau, Karina Tsui, Gloria Pazmino, Sara Smart, Leigh Waldman, Joel Williams, Hanna Park, Cindy Von Quednow, Sarah Dewberry and Andi Babineau contributed to this report.
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