The Port Authority fire truck that got into a fatal crash with an Air Canada jet landing at LaGuardia Airport didn’t have transponders installed that could have helped air traffic controllers better track its movements, NTSB investigators said Tuesday.
While radio transmissions made it clear the fire truck and several other emergency vehicles were close to the runway, transponders would have allowed controllers in the tower to see them on their instruments, National Transportation Safety Administration chair Jennifer Homendy said.
“The controllers should have all the tools they need to do their job,” she said at a press briefing at LaGuardia Airport Tuesday afternoon. “Whether it’s aircraft or vehicles moving in the taxiways, they should have it all.”
NTSB investigators have yet to interview the Port Authority Police sergeant and officer who were in the fire truck involved in the crash. The sergeant was expected to be released from the hospital Tuesday and the officer was released the day before.
The crash unfolded around 11:45 p.m. Sunday when the Air Canada jet arriving from Montreal slammed into the Port Authority fire truck racing across the runway to respond to a separate incident on a different plane.
The impact sheared off the front of the jet, killing the two pilots and injuring dozens of passengers.
Passengers of the Air Canada jet praised the two pilots killed in the crash, saying their quick reflexes likely prevented further deaths.
Pilot Antione Forest and First Officer Mackenzie Gunther were the only to die in the blistering crash.
Following the direction of the Port Authority Police Department, the NYPD’s ESU team assisted in rendering help to the wounded and packaging them for transport to area hospitals, NYPD officials said.
The Port Authority and the National Transportation Safety Board recovered the plane’s black box from the wreckage on Monday.
Authorities recovered the plane’s recorders by cutting a hole in the aircraft’s roof, Homendy said. After the crash, the plan was resting on its rear wings and the front of the plane was several feet in the air.
The recorders were driven to the NTSB lab in Washington for further analysis Monday, she said.
LaGuardia Airport was shut down for hours after the crash with more than 600 flights cancelled.
The airport was reopened on Monday afternoon but runway four, where the crash occurred, will remain closed for the foreseeable future, Homendy said.
“There’s a tremendous amount of debris,” Homendy said during a preliminary briefing on Monday.
The NTSB will be investigating all facets of the crash, including the possibility that a tower operator gave the emergency vehicle permission to cross the runway without realizing the Air Canada plane was landing there.
The dramatic seconds before and after the crash were captured on audio, with an air traffic controller saying he “messed up” by failing to prevent the collision.
Forty-one people — passengers, crew members and the two Port Authority police officers in the firetruck — were taken to area hospitals, with 32 treated for minor injuries and released and the other nine more seriously hurt, authorities said.
As of noon Tuesday, more than 270 flights in and out of the New York City airport have been canceled and another 264 have been delayed. There were 640 cancellations on Monday, according to flight-tracking data website Flightaware.