When there's a plane crash, the topic of conversation almost always immediately goes to who was at fault. In the case of the deadly crash between Air Canada Express flight 8646 and a fire truck at New York's LaGuardia Airport, early reports seem to indicate that fault lies with the air traffic controller in the tower. But, while it may look like the controller was at fault in this tragedy that took the lives of two Air Canada pilots, he certainly had the deck stacked against him.
The unidentified air traffic controller was in charge of both air and ground traffic at the time of the crash. While that's not necessarily out of the ordinary — especially for late-night hours — it should be. It meant that he was in charge of telling both planes in the air, planes on the ground and vehicles on the ground where they needed to go. While ATC Specialists are undoubtedly highly trained, it can certainly become too much for anybody, particularly at really busy airports like LaGuardia.
Leading up to the crash, the controller was tasked with his normal duties, as well as dealing with a rejected takeoff from a United Airlines flight that smelled something strange and asked for a fire response and to return to the gate. Unfortunately, there were no gates available, so the controller had to navigate that mess, and things were made even worse when the plane made a left instead of a right on a taxiway.
The pilot of that United flight declared an emergency when it became clear no gate was available. The firetruck that AC8646 eventually hit was the one that was responding to the United issue.
John Del Giorno, ABC7 New York's resident aviation expert, explained how this could have happened: "LaGuardia operates with four main runways [...] The fire truck was responding to a separate incident on the field at that time. There was a United airplane that was taking off on Runway 13. That airplane had an aborted takeoff with some sort of odor in the cabin. The pilot pulled over and requested emergency assistance. That's where the fire truck was going at the time this accident happened ... Those movements are completely governed by ATC ... permission has to be granted for that emergency vehicle to move."
With all of this going on, it's not a surprise that a deadly crash like this happened. As good as any human is at solving puzzles and coming up with permutations, there's a limit to what the brain can handle, and it leads to cracks and mistakes. For the most part, those end up as near misses, but every once in a while, you get something horrendous like this.
NBC's radio transcript shows the quieter moments after the incident, when the controller — clearly devastated — is talking to someone else about what happened. In the exchange, the controller says "I tried to reach out to my stuff, and we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up." The response comes back: "No, man, you did the best you could."
This incident is a symptom of a deeply broken system. Hopefully, it'll be a wake
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Air traffic controller was managing both air and ground traffic alone when deadly LaGuardia crash occurred.
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This highlights dangerous understaffing issues at major airports that can lead to fatal human errors.
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The controller was simultaneously handling a United Airlines emergency when the Air Canada collision happened.