A deadly runway collision at New York’s LaGuardia Airport has left both pilots of an Air Canada Express regional jet dead and dozens of others injured. The CRJ-900, operated by Jazz Aviation on behalf of Air Canada, struck an airport fire truck late Sunday night while landing after arriving from Montreal. Investigators said the crash injured at least 41 people and immediately raised serious questions about runway safety, air traffic control coordination, and ground vehicle procedures.

According to investigators, the fire vehicle had been cleared to cross the runway while responding to a separate emergency involving another aircraft. Air traffic control audio reportedly captured urgent last-second instructions telling the truck to stop, but the collision happened too quickly to avoid disaster. The National Transportation Safety Board has since confirmed that LaGuardia’s runway warning system did not generate an alert before impact, adding another troubling layer to the unfolding investigation.

Federal investigators also revealed that the fire truck lacked a transponder, equipment that could have helped the airport’s ground tracking system identify the vehicle more effectively. NTSB officials said the ASDE-X system failed to confidently track vehicles near the runway environment and therefore did not issue a warning to controllers. That failure, combined with the sequence of runway clearances and radio calls, has intensified scrutiny of whether multiple safety breakdowns aligned in the moments before impact.