Was curious if ground vehicles at airports also use transponders to communicate position to the radio tower, and it turns out the FAA put out a report last year on potential solutions to avoid this exact situation:
LaGuardia has that system, it still failed to prevent this
bilekas 1 hours ago [-]
That's a huge amount of damage even at 24mph. It's crazy how that could happen though. Will be interesting to see the full report.
masklinn 16 minutes ago [-]
The fire truck was flipped and moved to the side of the runway, this was not 24mph. 24mph is the final groundspeed recorded after the aircraft skidded off of the runway.
Per the ADSBx track the plane was at 101kts (115 mph / 185kph) just before crossing taxiway D, which would be where it hit the firetruck. It still had enough energy afterwards to reach taxiway E, 600ft away.
hiddendoom45 1 hours ago [-]
It looks like that is based on the last recorded speed from flightradar24[1] which was 21kts(24mph). The previous data points were 11kts, and 58 kts(the last point before the track deviates off the runway). I do think it is likely that the collision occurred at a speed faster than 24mph.
edit: Looking into this a bit more it looks like the plane came to a stop around crossing E while the emergency vehicle was crossing at D(based on ATC recordings). Using the following map as reference[2], the 58kts point was around E, while the previous recorded point which was just before D was 114kts.
Very unlikely it was 24mph…The entire cockpit is gone.
(Though some of the major damage may have happened while deplaning the passengers)
Ekaros 1 hours ago [-]
On other hand planes are really not designed to be crashed into things. Only for limited impacts. So we might not have right comparison for relatively thin and aimed to be light structure being impacted by bulkier object.
> Captain and first officer are reported to have died in the accident, two fire fighters on board of the truck received serious injuries, 13 passengers received injuries.
haunter 1 hours ago [-]
I saw the first post about this on /r/flying and /r/aviation 5 hours ago and legacy media is only started reporting it in the last hour or so
tchalla 1 hours ago [-]
I have seen a lot of first posts on social media which have been wrong
whycome 1 hours ago [-]
And so much of the legacy media info is wrong. It’s strange because a lot of the primary sources are public.
The clearance for AC8646 to land on runway 4 is given in a sequence starting at 4:58. "Vehicle needs to cross the runway" at 6:43. Truck 1 and company asks for clearance to cross 4 at 6:53. Clearance is granted at 7:00. Then ATC asks both a Frontier and Truck 1 to stop, voice is hurried and it's confusing.
Symbiote 27 minutes ago [-]
> And so much of the legacy media info is wrong. It’s strange because a lot of the primary sources are public.
You should provide sources for a claim like that. For example, what in the BBC article is wrong?
quotemstr 41 minutes ago [-]
It's hardly worth checking with the legacy media anymore. Really, why bother?
spwa4 2 hours ago [-]
According to other news sources, the pilots lost their lives here, too.
azalemeth 1 hours ago [-]
The entire cockpit, front toilet and galley area, and probably a front row seat have all been utterly destroyed. Unfortunately I'd be amazed if the death toll stays at two.
weird-eye-issue 2 hours ago [-]
How did it end up like that with the nose up: what is holding it up?
Reason077 1 hours ago [-]
Gravity. The aircraft is heavier at the back, where the engines are. With the nose severely damaged/missing, the centre of gravity has shifted aft, so what’s left of the nose is sticking up in the air.
cschmatzler 1 hours ago [-]
Front fell off, people deplaned (while still horizontal) which shifted the balance backwards. It’s sitting on the rear bulkhead,
weird-eye-issue 1 hours ago [-]
I guess there is more weight in the relatively small section of the front that came off than I expected
metalman 1 hours ago [-]
It should be noted that aircraft and all other vehicle and personel movements on an airport are controlled from the airtraffic control tower by air traffic controllers or
directly by individual flaggers, as directed from the tower.
Or at least thats the way it is supposed to work, and of course the operation at a place like LaGuardia is more complex, and will have specialists and multiple zones.
What will put an extra edge on this is the
whole ICE thing, and airport chaos pulling the roof down.
lotsofpulp 33 minutes ago [-]
The comments in /r/aviation see to think it’s a one (tired) man show at night.
https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/certalerts/part_...
Per the ADSBx track the plane was at 101kts (115 mph / 185kph) just before crossing taxiway D, which would be where it hit the firetruck. It still had enough energy afterwards to reach taxiway E, 600ft away.
edit: Looking into this a bit more it looks like the plane came to a stop around crossing E while the emergency vehicle was crossing at D(based on ATC recordings). Using the following map as reference[2], the 58kts point was around E, while the previous recorded point which was just before D was 114kts.
[1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ac8646#3ede6c39
[2] https://www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/LGA/APD/AIRPOR...
(Though some of the major damage may have happened while deplaning the passengers)
> Captain and first officer are reported to have died in the accident, two fire fighters on board of the truck received serious injuries, 13 passengers received injuries.
This is a good overview so far:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8vokLcNNGCM
ATC audio is https://archive.liveatc.net/klga/KLGA-Twr-Mar-23-2026-0330Z....
The clearance for AC8646 to land on runway 4 is given in a sequence starting at 4:58. "Vehicle needs to cross the runway" at 6:43. Truck 1 and company asks for clearance to cross 4 at 6:53. Clearance is granted at 7:00. Then ATC asks both a Frontier and Truck 1 to stop, voice is hurried and it's confusing.
You should provide sources for a claim like that. For example, what in the BBC article is wrong?
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1s16x61/comment/o...