CRJ collides into Fire engine on runway at La Guardia 3/22/26

Matthew said:
It seems the controller really was trying to squeeze the emergency vehicles across until he wasn’t.

I thought it was interesting how the automated REL system turns the lights green at each intersection about 2 seconds before the plane gets there. Cross traffic running at 20-30mph and hitting the lights just as they turn green eats into that hold safety margin.
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The lights don't turn green. They turn off. Red or off. The taxiway centerline lights are green. If you look at the example in the preliminary report, both the red and green lights are on at the same time. Only the red lights cycle on and off.

They are not traffic signals. The red lights turning off does not mean that you can cross. You need the lights off and ATC clearance. They are a backup to give the crossing vehicle's operator(s) an additional chance to catch a controller error.

The red lights go off slightly early so that there won't be in conflict with an ATC instruction to cross which is, as they have always been, based on anticipated separation.
 
If you go fast enough, red looks green.

There's a story (which I'm sure it's fabricated, but still funny) that a guy went in front of a judge to argue that he ran a red light because it looked green at the speed he was going. Judge dropped the red light ticket, then proceeded to calculate the speed required for the red light to appear green (about 20% the speed of light), and told him he had to pay a $35 million speeding ticket.
 
Larry in TN said:
The lights don't turn green. They turn off. Red or off. The taxiway centerline lights are green. If you look at the example in the preliminary report, both the red and green lights are on at the same time. Only the red lights cycle on and off.

They are not traffic signals. The red lights turning off does not mean that you can cross. You need the lights off and ATC clearance. They are a backup to give the crossing vehicle's operator(s) an additional chance to catch a controller error.

The red lights go off slightly early so that there won't be in conflict with an ATC instruction to cross which is, as they have always been, based on anticipated separation.
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Off yes, green no. I was typing faster than I was thinking.
 
So the truck received direction to cross, started moving to cross the runway, the RELs turned off just before he got to them, as they are apparently designed to do, and...boom. I stand my by my initial statement, while the truck operators aren't blameless, one of the first links in the accident chain was ATC clearing them to cross while the aircraft was on very short final. The entire purpose of ATC is to keep two moving things from occupying the same space at the same time. Transponders, RELs, are all just tools to enhance the human element.

Now was the ATC failure due to distraction, fatigue, staffing, training, complacency, etc., I don't know. The ARFF crew also bears responsibility for depending entirely on ATC (complacency too) and not verifying for themselves the runway was clear before crossing, as all of us as pilots and/or vehicle operators on airports have been trained to do.
 
midwestpa24 said:
So the truck received direction to cross, started moving to cross the runway, the RELs turned off just before he got to them, as they are apparently designed to do, and...boom.
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You shouldn't be moving toward the red lights. The lights should go out before the clearance is given. That is how they are timed. If you start moving when the lights go out, the runway will be clear when you get to it.

The controller's error started the accident chain. There were several more errors after that.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
The Port Authority fire crews should be replaced by professionals
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How would you define professional? Where do you think the PA ARFF crews come from?

Larry in TN said:
The controller's error started the accident chain. There were several more errors after that.
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That is how nearly all aviation accidents occur. There is an initial error that starts the chain, but usually redundant systems or procedures that can break the chain before the accident occurs. Unfortunately all of it was created and operated by humans, and can still fail.
 
Aircraft must have transponders within 30 miles of the airport. So I was surprised that the report said fire trucks can drive across LGA runways without transponders. Apparently they always do - amazing. And so, there's no automatic warning of an impending collision.

The controller's visual portrayal of what's where, on the taxiways and runways, seems to be little more than radar, and the fire trucks are indistinguishable and often don't show up on the radar.

Imagine a transponderless airplane, weighing 62,000 pounds, flying often across the approach path for a runway, vanishing often from radar, and operated by someone with little more than a radio to help them avoid collisions. It seems about the same to me. Makes no sense.
 
NoHeat said:
Aircraft must have transponders within 30 miles of the airport. So I was surprised that the report said fire trucks can drive across LGA runways without transponders. Apparently they always do - amazing.
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When you put it that way, yeah. Good point.
 
Or maybe it's just based on airport size and traffic volume. ALB? They had an airliner land with an emergency and trucks requested to roll a couple of weeks ago. Their solution - they close the airport until it's resolved. If I remember right, they gave options to the traffic - do you want to hold, or do you want to divert?

At this one, part of what was listed in the report was that there were 2 controllers, and one controller was handling the emergency of the aircraft in the ramp area that requested assistance. So the other controller was handling tower and ground. That makes sense. But they kept the airport open, and were trying to coordinate the fire ground response with the airport being open and traffic coming in. I don't know if that was the right call, hindsight and all, but if it's routine to have trucks rolling while the airport is open, yeah, keeping track of things better does sound like a plan.

All armchair stuff on my part. But it does sound like maybe the runway light system was designed in someone's head as a backup system, but the way it was operated it wasn't a backup system at all. Along the lines of, if you have redundancy but you don't have any systems in place to detect when one of the redundant systems has failed, you really don't have any redundancy, it's just a more complicated cascade failure.
 
midwestpa24 said:
So the truck received direction to cross, started moving to cross the runway, the RELs turned off just before he got to them, as they are apparently designed to do, and...boom. I stand my by my initial statement, while the truck operators aren't blameless, one of the first links in the accident chain was ATC clearing them to cross while the aircraft was on very short final. The entire purpose of ATC is to keep two moving things from occupying the same space at the same time. Transponders, RELs, are all just tools to enhance the human element.

Now was the ATC failure due to distraction, fatigue, staffing, training, complacency, etc., I don't know. The ARFF crew also bears responsibility for depending entirely on ATC (complacency too) and not verifying for themselves the runway was clear before crossing, as all of us as pilots and/or vehicle operators on airports have been trained to do.
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From the preliminary report:

"A review of airport surveillance video recordings revealed that the RELs illuminated for the arrival of the accident airplane, as Truck 1 and company were stationary in the vicinity of the taxiway AA and taxiway D intersection, about 300 ft away from the runway 4 hold short line on taxiway D. The RELs on taxiway D remained illuminated until about the time Truck 1 reached the (near) edge of runway, when they extinguished, about 3 seconds prior to the collision."

This makes clear that the Truck 1 driver either didn’t notice the red RELs or ignored the red RELs; i.e., the RELs were illuminated well before Truck 1 reached the D/4 hold short line and remained illuminated for most of Truck 1’s transit onto runway 4. Note that the 300 ft statement is erroneous. The distance from AA along D to the D/4 hold short line is 100 ft while the distance from that point to the runway 4 edge is 300 ft.
 
NoHeat said:
Aircraft must have transponders within 30 miles of the airport. So I was surprised that the report said fire trucks can drive across LGA runways without transponders. Apparently they always do - amazing. And so, there's no automatic warning of an impending collision.
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Explain to me how a transponder is going to help here. The Controller had no probelm knowing where the vehicles where.
Are you thinking that TCAS would somehow have helped here? (It won't, at least as it is currently designed).
 
flyingron said:
Explain to me how a transponder is going to help here. The Controller had no probelm knowing where the vehicles where.
Are you thinking that TCAS would somehow have helped here? (It won't, at least as it is currently designed).
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The only effect I see of that in the preliminary, is that the controller's display didn't show all of the vehicles. But since the plane hit the first vehicle, it's unclear whether that was a material issue.
 
Lindberg said:
It's interesting when disproved assumptions don't change opinions and conclusions.
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Potomac seemed pretty straightforward to me, in terms of risk/outcome. But this one doesn't seem clear to me, yet. Single acting controller, but that's going to happen for a few minutes each shift anyway, for breaks. It reads and feels like the red lighting system either technically or procedurally wasn't a backup to a crossing clearance, but not sure on that. If it did come down to the controller making a mistake, and nobody else being in a position to double check that mistake, then that sounds like a problem.

One thing that I don't know if has been mentioned, but pretty sure that fire trucks are way slower than other vehicles in terms of acceleration. Like a 0-60 times of 20-30 seconds....because they can weigh 24 tons or so loaded. So if someone was used to crossing times of the average empty pickup truck or SUV, it's not the same. And the visibility of a car might be better, I don't know.
 
Some airports do have transponder equipped vehicles on the airport. You can occasionally see them on ADSB exchange. ORD is one that does, although I have no idea what percentage are equipped.

Beyond simple cost to equip, I know one issue is congestion. Major airports can have more vehicles than aircraft operating on the movement area. That is a lot of transponders radiating on the same frequencies, cluttering the screen, and a lot of unique hex codes necessary to indentify thousands if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles at all major airports.
 
Lindberg said:
The only effect I see of that in the preliminary, is that the controller's display didn't show all of the vehicles. But since the plane hit the first vehicle, it's unclear whether that was a material issue.
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And he knew EXACTLY where that vehicle was. That doesn't seem to be a point of contention. He just lost the "big picture" of where the airplane was on the approach.
 
flyingron said:
Explain to me how a transponder is going to help here. The Controller had no probelm knowing where the vehicles where.
Are you thinking that TCAS would somehow have helped here? (It won't, at least as it is currently designed).
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Not a terminal guy, but I think ASDE-X would have given the controller an aural warning of the predicted collision if both the aircraft and the truck were transponder equipped. I don't know if it would have changed the outcome. The truck was stopped and would have been considered safe from the arrival. When it started moving it was so close to the collision I don't know if ASDE-X would have enabled the controller to realize the conflict quicker than he did and tell the truck to stop.
 
flyingron said:
And he knew EXACTLY where that vehicle was. That doesn't seem to be a point of contention. He just lost the "big picture" of where the airplane was on the approach.
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Don’t think we can reach such a conclusion yet as the preliminary report offers no statements about how the LC was generating his SA of the vehicles; i.e., visual, ASDE-X display, or fusion of the two. Figure 6 of the report shows that the LC should have had a clear visual view of all of the response vehicles as well as any vehicle positions shown on the ASDE-X display.

As to the point of the ASDE-X display not showing Truck 1, I don’t think this was relevant to the LC’s decision to issue the crossing instruction. Either it was safe to cross 7 vehicles—6 shown on the ADSE-X display as two radar returns— or it was not. In retrospect, we know that it was unsafe and incorrect for the LC to issue a crossing clearance at that point in time, regardless of whether the position of Truck 1 was known, as the crossing clearance was for “Truck 1 and company.”

Where the position of Truck 1 becomes relevant is with ASDE-X operating as a safety system, backing up the LC’s SA. ASDE-X didn’t alert for a runway incursion because the system didn’t detect the position of Truck 1.

Which brings up the question: what if Truck 1 had an operating position beacon? Would the ASDE-X runway incursion alert have provided sufficient time for the LC to mitigate the threat given the runway 4 touchdown zone proximity to taxiway D? We already have empirical data that LC verbal instructions to stop Truck 1 were ineffective. Was there sufficient time for the LC to respond to an alert, issue go-around instructions to 646 and have 646 safely avoid Truck 1? As a reference, during the 2023 JFK runway incursion incident, it took 5 seconds from the time of the ADSE-X alert to when the LC canceled Delta’s take-off clearance.
 
considering the update rate and latency of ASDE-X, it's not likely to have made any difference.
 
737steve said:
Five months later...
avbrief.com

Controllers Left Work Early Before La Guardia Runway Collision - AvBrief.com

FAA and NATCA are now investigating.
avbrief.com avbrief.com

We'll find out how word "accountable" applies to government.
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A little more context: these controllers managed to align their schedule so that their breaks fell at the very end of their shift.

Controllers go on and off position frequently, with the durations varying from facility to facility based on workload and staffing. I believe a typical schedule is 2 hours on, 40 minutes off, or something like that (maybe a controller will jump in an d clarify). When the break falls at the end of the shift, and the controller is not expected to plug back in before the end of their shift, it was a common practice to pack up and go home early. This wasn't an official policy but was presumably tolerated by management even though it is timecard falsification.

Obviously had the controllers stuck around in the break room the supe could have recalled them to help out since there was an active emergency. But alas...
 
Brad Z said:
A little more context: these controllers managed to align their schedule so that their breaks fell at the very end of their shift.

Controllers go on and off position frequently, with the durations varying from facility to facility based on workload and staffing. I believe a typical schedule is 2 hours on, 40 minutes off, or something like that (maybe a controller will jump in an d clarify). When the break falls at the end of the shift, and the controller is not expected to plug back in before the end of their shift, it was a common practice to pack up and go home early. This wasn't an official policy but was presumably tolerated by management even though it is timecard falsification.

Obviously had the controllers stuck around in the break room the supe could have recalled them to help out since there was an active emergency. But alas...
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That's good context. So even if the controllers hadn't left, they wouldn't have been on positions. Except that if end-of-shift breaks didn't mean going home early, there would have been less incentive for both controllers going off shift to schedule their breaks at the same time, and at least one of them might have been there, which might or might not have prevented the accident.
 
Is there a minimum complement of controllers that has to be maintained, even while someone is on break? If so, did this tower adhere to it?
 
rgb30b said:
Hmm, thats not good enough! Seems like it wouldn't be a stretch for negligent homicide.
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Here's what I found for the core components of negligent homicide.

The State generally must establish:
--A person died.
--The defendant caused the death—legally, the conduct must be a cause of the death, not merely something coincidental or unrelated.
--The defendant acted with criminal negligence.
--The conduct was unlawful rather than legally justified or excused.
 
rgb30b said:
Hmm, thats not good enough! Seems like it wouldn't be a stretch for negligent homicide.
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It would actually be a big stretch. Here's what NY law requires for criminal negligence:

A person acts with criminal negligence with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he fails to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists.  The risk must be of such nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.
 
737steve said:
With a union involved, I would be surprised if this does not take quite a while to resolve.
What is the source for this report?
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I'm pretty sure this administration DGAF what NATCA thinks of the termination. Besides, timecard fraud is pretty cut and dry in federal service. You can be the biggest slacker in the agency, but fibbing on your timecard will get you the door pretty quickly.
 
Larry in TN said:
Here's what I found for the core components of negligent homicide.

The State generally must establish:
--A person died.
--The defendant caused the death—legally, the conduct must be a cause of the death, not merely something coincidental or unrelated.
--The defendant acted with criminal negligence.
--The conduct was unlawful rather than legally justified.
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Looks like 4/4 to me ...
 
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