Updated ,first published
New York: The pilot and co-pilot of an Air Canada Express regional jet with about 80 people on board were killed after it collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport late on Sunday, in an incident that closed the airport, authorities and US media said.
NBC News, which reported the deaths, said dozens of others were injured in the incident.
The news channel said the fire truck was manned by police officers, citing sources. It had earlier said a sergeant and an officer had broken limbs and were in stable condition at a hospital.
The airport was closed, with all flights diverted to other airports or returned to their point of origin, authorities said.
Social media footage showed the plane stopped on the runway, its nose in the air, with significant damage to the cockpit. An eyewitness in the video states the aircraft’s nose lifted after the passengers had been evacuated.
According to aviation tracker Flight Radar 24, flight AC8646 took off from Montreal and landed at LaGuardia at 11.37pm US time (2.37pm AEDT). The aircraft was taxiing when it struck the fire truck, which was crossing the runway.
A spokesperson for the New York City Fire Department said firefighters responded to reports of a plane that crashed into a vehicle on the runway.
The plane involved in the collision is a 20-year-old CRJ-900LR being operated by Jazz Aviation, Air Canada’s regional partner. Jazz’s CRJ-900 planes can seat up to 76 passengers, according to Air Canada’s website. NBC News reported that 76 passengers and four crew members were on board.
According to CNN, LaGuardia warned earlier of flight disruptions due to the weather, with light rain and fog in the area.
The incident continues a series of accidents that made last year one of the deadliest in the past decade for civil aviation. In November, a UPS cargo jet crashed and exploded shortly after take-off from Louisville, Kentucky.
The crash of an Air India Boeing 787 in June, just seconds after take-off, killed all but one of the 242 people on board. In January 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an army helicopter near Washington in one of the deadliest US civil aviation disasters in decades.
AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.