In 20 seconds on the night of March 22, the seamless sequence of arrivals, departures, and holds at LaGuardia Airport'along with all their required calls and responses'was upended. In that brief period, a Port Authority fire truck was cleared to cross runway 4, Frontier Flight 4195 was told to stop taxiing, Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was landing, and the fire truck was frantically told to stop'before it collided with the Air Canada flight, killing the pilot and co-pilot. In air-traffic-control audio, the same controller is heard communicating with the aircraft and with the ground vehicles. Yesterday, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a news conference that two controllers were in the tower at the time of collision: a controller who was assigned to handle communications within the immediate airspace and for operations on the active runways, and a controller-in-charge who was providing clearance instructions for all departing aircraft. This was standard operating...
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