Yes, my heart goes out to the controller. We don't fix the air traffic control system because we need to spend money on lobster tails et al for the Pentagon and luxury jets for DHS the list goes on. So disgusting.
Your analysis of the true root cause is correct as I see the situation. Momentary lapses always have systemic root causes. One other factor I should mention is that the driver of the truck did not clear the runway visually, including looking for landing planes, before proceeding. Runways are like railroad tracks, always look both ways before crossing, regardless of the signals.
I don’t want to blame anyone today, well, actually I do. I want the onus where it belongs. Congress, are you listening? Your ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, your grifters, and SCOTUS, have seen to it that the American taxpayer is deemed unnecessary until the bills are due. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.
Just as it’s difficult to tell the speed of an oncoming train, it is difficult to tell the speed of an aircraft, if they even recognized the landing light as an aircraft. The landing light they might or might not have seen could have looked like a large aircraft, many miles away, vs. the smaller aircraft closer to them. Firefighters don’t have the experience pilots do in discerning that sort of thing. Add to that the fact that it was raining. Simple raindrops on a window distort lights. It wasn’t as simple as “look both ways” —which I’m certain they did. They were crossing an active runway. They had been cleared by ATC to cross. I am certain they still looked before they started across, but a plane landing is going way faster than is easily recognized at night, in the rain.
I saw the video of the crash. The truck was moving mostly parallel to the runway then cut across it just as the plane arrived. They couldn’t have looked both ways, didn’t slow down long enough. At that distance, the lights would be right on top of them.
All that aside, you see lights coming at you, you don’t try to beat it.
Same with motor cycles. Distance is harder to assess with one headlight at night and low visibility situations. That makes speed undetectable. Riders should figure that in when riding with other vehicles for their own safety.
Yes. And we are short on FEMA, on health care and doctors and people who track weather and climate-change induced impacts and emergencies and schools and qualified disease experts. We are in a world of trouble and this government is incompetent and deadly.
That poor controller - no matter what, this will haunt that person's life until death. I only hope this tragic event doesn't conclude with a breakdown of this person because the REAL fault was, as Adam writes, not theirs but a collective one.
This was exactly my thought this morning when I heard the news. So discouraging. Thank you for writing about it in the detail that only a pilot - politician can understand.
Thank you for this. So sad. As a mother of a son in his second year at Embry Riddle to become a pilot and also going to school with ATC’s of our future, I hope they prioritize this without our “president” going out there again blaming DEI. 😢
Profoundly sad. My heart goes out to the air traffic controller who was doing his best under incredibly stressful circumstances. And to the pilots and their families. Tragic all around. I have experienced so many white knuckle landing at LaGuardia! Margin for error is nil!
In all reality , LaGuardia as an airport , should have been closed a long time ago, the runways are too short and lead right into a body of water ! Mostly has been shut during inclement weather, Sad that the accident happened even sadder is ICE being at airports !
I remember a time when we were in the air from Phoenix, flying to Kennedy. There was a snowstorm in NYC and a plane slid off the runway at LaGuardia, meaning that all flights to LaGuardia had to be diverted to Kennedy or Newark. By the time, a few hours later, our plane was close to Kennedy, the back up of flights in the air over Kennedy was bad and we were in a long, LONG holding pattern. Finally our pilot had to say "Sorry folks but we are going to have to fly to Detroit to refuel." We ended up missing our connection at Kennedy to Dublin that night but at least no one was hurt on the ground or in the air that day. I have immense respect for the pilots who have to decide when to reroute and the ATC's who give them the necessary information.
Well said Adam. I’ve been an airline pilot for 15 years (and a pilot for 22 years). I’ve operated out of almost every busy airport in the U.S. and around the world for a long time.
US controllers are the best in the world without question, despite them dealing with shortages and outdated equipment for decades.
This literally goes back 20 years ago (and probably more), when Comair flight 5191 (Delta Connection flight) took off on the wrong runway in Lexington, KY for Atlanta. Everyone perished except for one pilot. Due to short staffing, one controller was working both tower and ground very early in the morning.
While the pilots were found to be at fault, a MAJOR contributing factor was the overworked controller who was too busy to notice the pilots on the wrong runway.
This has happened multiple times now. I’ve also heard the controller in this LGA crash last night was considered by his colleagues and pilots that frequent LGA as being excellent and among the very best in a busy, complicated environment.
I feel terrible for the pilots, cabin crew, passengers, and crew of the fire truck (ARFF). But I also feel terrible for this controller. He was setup by the FAA to fail. He is now living his worst nightmare, and honestly the blame falls on the FAA, not him. This keeps happening and the FAA does nothing about it.
Controllers across the country are overworked, underpaid, and stressed out. It’s absolutely reckless how they’re being treated, and we will keep seeing these types of accidents.
Just a few days ago we almost had a major accident between a FedEx flight and an Alaska Airlines flight landing on separate runways in Newark. Fortunately the controller realized his mistake at the last second, and both flight crews avoided calamity by following last second instructions.
When there is no redundancy (in terms of personnel or control equipment or the physical system design) in the planning process for how critical matters will be handled, this kind of thing is a statistically possible event that will manifest at some point (you can get away with it maybe 99 times out of 100, but that 1 failure will get you). Usually a really bad event like this may have a single proximate cause (ATC guy gave faulty instructions under pressure) but we have to go back to root causes and we'll usually find multiple things going wrong or being deficient all at once - here, as Adam points out, airport runway design (hard to fix), the ATC management system (allowing a single staffer to be responsible for the whole shebang under supposedly low-traffic conditions), staffing shortages, ATC training etc... some of which can be traced back to how our elected politicians have chosen to prioritize budgets over decades.
The problem is that prioritizing the safe and efficient operation of our ATC system never won anyone an election, but giving certain people a tax cut or purposely creating problems for disfavored groups etc will win you elections.
Airports overloaded, controllers overtaxed, means an accident will happen. Newer, sophisticated technology would help, but there are always those with selfish, and irresponsible priorities.
When the NTSB finishes its investigation, it will issue recommendations—but implementation is ultimately up to the FAA. Aviation history shows the stakes: after a 1991 ground collision in Los Angeles, investigators blamed airport conditions and cleared the controller, yet her career was effectively ended. Air traffic professionals operate under intense pressure and carry every incident with them; systemic failings, not individual shame, demand systemic remedies. Congress and the president must stop treating aviation safety as an afterthought, fund meaningful infrastructure and staffing reforms, and the FAA adopt NTSB recommendations promptly so that accountability leads to prevention.
We don't have money to upgrade critical systems like this, and other infrastructure. But we have money to waste on unnecessary wars.
I'm so sorry for the lives lost and for the controller who was put in an untenable position.
Katrina, well said.
Yes, my heart goes out to the controller. We don't fix the air traffic control system because we need to spend money on lobster tails et al for the Pentagon and luxury jets for DHS the list goes on. So disgusting.
And also to give more of our tax dollars to billionaires.
Your analysis of the true root cause is correct as I see the situation. Momentary lapses always have systemic root causes. One other factor I should mention is that the driver of the truck did not clear the runway visually, including looking for landing planes, before proceeding. Runways are like railroad tracks, always look both ways before crossing, regardless of the signals.
I don’t want to blame anyone today, well, actually I do. I want the onus where it belongs. Congress, are you listening? Your ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, your grifters, and SCOTUS, have seen to it that the American taxpayer is deemed unnecessary until the bills are due. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.
Don't forget DOGE.
Just as it’s difficult to tell the speed of an oncoming train, it is difficult to tell the speed of an aircraft, if they even recognized the landing light as an aircraft. The landing light they might or might not have seen could have looked like a large aircraft, many miles away, vs. the smaller aircraft closer to them. Firefighters don’t have the experience pilots do in discerning that sort of thing. Add to that the fact that it was raining. Simple raindrops on a window distort lights. It wasn’t as simple as “look both ways” —which I’m certain they did. They were crossing an active runway. They had been cleared by ATC to cross. I am certain they still looked before they started across, but a plane landing is going way faster than is easily recognized at night, in the rain.
I saw the video of the crash. The truck was moving mostly parallel to the runway then cut across it just as the plane arrived. They couldn’t have looked both ways, didn’t slow down long enough. At that distance, the lights would be right on top of them.
All that aside, you see lights coming at you, you don’t try to beat it.
Mr. Whitmire, listen through the end of this video. This is a pilot’s opinion of what the fire truck saw. https://x.com/outfrontcnn/status/2036610424976863355?s=46&t=QXeGW_-7uOEQm2bkfHi__A
Same with motor cycles. Distance is harder to assess with one headlight at night and low visibility situations. That makes speed undetectable. Riders should figure that in when riding with other vehicles for their own safety.
Yes. And we are short on FEMA, on health care and doctors and people who track weather and climate-change induced impacts and emergencies and schools and qualified disease experts. We are in a world of trouble and this government is incompetent and deadly.
But spending billions of our hard earned tax dollars on another unnecessary Mideast war.
That poor controller - no matter what, this will haunt that person's life until death. I only hope this tragic event doesn't conclude with a breakdown of this person because the REAL fault was, as Adam writes, not theirs but a collective one.
Read Deming on Management. There are few individual tragic fuckups. We elected one, though.
it is amazing how many people get in line to fuckup alongside him, and praise his fuckupery.
This was exactly my thought this morning when I heard the news. So discouraging. Thank you for writing about it in the detail that only a pilot - politician can understand.
Thank you for this. So sad. As a mother of a son in his second year at Embry Riddle to become a pilot and also going to school with ATC’s of our future, I hope they prioritize this without our “president” going out there again blaming DEI. 😢
Profoundly sad. My heart goes out to the air traffic controller who was doing his best under incredibly stressful circumstances. And to the pilots and their families. Tragic all around. I have experienced so many white knuckle landing at LaGuardia! Margin for error is nil!
Exactly. Well said.
Oh, god. Give the man some grace and gentle quiet.
In all reality , LaGuardia as an airport , should have been closed a long time ago, the runways are too short and lead right into a body of water ! Mostly has been shut during inclement weather, Sad that the accident happened even sadder is ICE being at airports !
I remember a time when we were in the air from Phoenix, flying to Kennedy. There was a snowstorm in NYC and a plane slid off the runway at LaGuardia, meaning that all flights to LaGuardia had to be diverted to Kennedy or Newark. By the time, a few hours later, our plane was close to Kennedy, the back up of flights in the air over Kennedy was bad and we were in a long, LONG holding pattern. Finally our pilot had to say "Sorry folks but we are going to have to fly to Detroit to refuel." We ended up missing our connection at Kennedy to Dublin that night but at least no one was hurt on the ground or in the air that day. I have immense respect for the pilots who have to decide when to reroute and the ATC's who give them the necessary information.
Maybe after the deadly crash this weekend , LaGuardia will finally close !
Newark is as bad though. Kennedy can't handle that extra traffic.
Well said Adam. I’ve been an airline pilot for 15 years (and a pilot for 22 years). I’ve operated out of almost every busy airport in the U.S. and around the world for a long time.
US controllers are the best in the world without question, despite them dealing with shortages and outdated equipment for decades.
This literally goes back 20 years ago (and probably more), when Comair flight 5191 (Delta Connection flight) took off on the wrong runway in Lexington, KY for Atlanta. Everyone perished except for one pilot. Due to short staffing, one controller was working both tower and ground very early in the morning.
While the pilots were found to be at fault, a MAJOR contributing factor was the overworked controller who was too busy to notice the pilots on the wrong runway.
This has happened multiple times now. I’ve also heard the controller in this LGA crash last night was considered by his colleagues and pilots that frequent LGA as being excellent and among the very best in a busy, complicated environment.
I feel terrible for the pilots, cabin crew, passengers, and crew of the fire truck (ARFF). But I also feel terrible for this controller. He was setup by the FAA to fail. He is now living his worst nightmare, and honestly the blame falls on the FAA, not him. This keeps happening and the FAA does nothing about it.
Controllers across the country are overworked, underpaid, and stressed out. It’s absolutely reckless how they’re being treated, and we will keep seeing these types of accidents.
Just a few days ago we almost had a major accident between a FedEx flight and an Alaska Airlines flight landing on separate runways in Newark. Fortunately the controller realized his mistake at the last second, and both flight crews avoided calamity by following last second instructions.
This WILL keep happening.
Well said!! Our Controllers have been ignored for too long. Government and Private Sector wake up!!
Some of the big dollars going to Elon Musk & a stupid rocket ship to mars should be redirected to airline safety.
When there is no redundancy (in terms of personnel or control equipment or the physical system design) in the planning process for how critical matters will be handled, this kind of thing is a statistically possible event that will manifest at some point (you can get away with it maybe 99 times out of 100, but that 1 failure will get you). Usually a really bad event like this may have a single proximate cause (ATC guy gave faulty instructions under pressure) but we have to go back to root causes and we'll usually find multiple things going wrong or being deficient all at once - here, as Adam points out, airport runway design (hard to fix), the ATC management system (allowing a single staffer to be responsible for the whole shebang under supposedly low-traffic conditions), staffing shortages, ATC training etc... some of which can be traced back to how our elected politicians have chosen to prioritize budgets over decades.
The problem is that prioritizing the safe and efficient operation of our ATC system never won anyone an election, but giving certain people a tax cut or purposely creating problems for disfavored groups etc will win you elections.
The Air traffic controllers have done a great job at not having a disaster happen in the past years
Airports overloaded, controllers overtaxed, means an accident will happen. Newer, sophisticated technology would help, but there are always those with selfish, and irresponsible priorities.
When the NTSB finishes its investigation, it will issue recommendations—but implementation is ultimately up to the FAA. Aviation history shows the stakes: after a 1991 ground collision in Los Angeles, investigators blamed airport conditions and cleared the controller, yet her career was effectively ended. Air traffic professionals operate under intense pressure and carry every incident with them; systemic failings, not individual shame, demand systemic remedies. Congress and the president must stop treating aviation safety as an afterthought, fund meaningful infrastructure and staffing reforms, and the FAA adopt NTSB recommendations promptly so that accountability leads to prevention.
Unfortunately, the NTSB has no enforcement powers. The FAA doesn't even have to follow their recommendations.
True. NTSB recommends, the FAA writes the rules and enforces them.
So sorry for this. Thanks for the insight. Heartbreaking for all concerned .