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:
Transponder doesn't alter the laws of physics for the landing plane you just cut off. I guess it gives ATC a ~5sec jump on telling some other flight to go around.
I'd bet a lot of money that however the system is implemented the police and fire get special treatment when it comes to process and that's what lead to this.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Because some of them still have standards. They will correct themselves if something was wrong.
Everyone can write a comment on Reddit / make a podcast / video / whatever claiming whatever they want. Unless you already know and trust them (which requires you to be able to cross-check their information), it's potentially as useful as a random LLM hallucination. Could be brilliantly spot on, or could be completely nonsense. No way of knowing unless you already know enough. (Because even cross-checking won't necessarily save you, if you cross-check multiple bullshit sources).
Media with standards (like the BBC, Guardian, Liberation, etc.) will do their best to report truthfully (even if sometimes with some bias), and will fix their mistakes if they're caught later on or the story evolves. Independent media checking organisations have shown time and time again that there is trustworthy media, you just need to know which it is, and always take a pinch of salt. It's wild to me that people will just dismiss rags such as Fox News and relatively quality media like Guardian in the same breath.
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.
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.
I’d guess the front landing gear assembly is going to be fairly heavy, and appears to be missing. This model of plane also has its engines at the rear, not under the wing, which will move the balance to the back.
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.
This comes to mind how during the Boeing news scandals, commenters would confidently argue "Flying is still ridiculously safe, statistically speaking", "these things happen every day, just underreported", and "you/people are irrational for not flying Boeing". It's a very curious argument to me. Is the ATC infrastructure issue analogous or not, etc.
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:
https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/certalerts/part_...
Many airports have ADS-B transponders in their ground vehicles. You can see them on flightradar or adsbexchange.
LaGuardia has that system, it still failed to prevent this
Transponder doesn't alter the laws of physics for the landing plane you just cut off. I guess it gives ATC a ~5sec jump on telling some other flight to go around.
I'd bet a lot of money that however the system is implemented the police and fire get special treatment when it comes to process and that's what lead to this.
https://www.avherald.com/h?article=536bb98e
> 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.
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.
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.
Okay that makes far more sense the article didn’t really make that clear to me.
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.
[1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ac8646#3ede6c39
[2] https://www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/LGA/APD/AIRPOR...
Very unlikely it was 24mph…The entire cockpit is gone.
(Though some of the major damage may have happened while deplaning the passengers)
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.
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
I have seen a lot of first posts on social media which have been wrong
And so much of the legacy media info is wrong. It’s strange because a lot of the primary sources are public.
This is a good overview so far:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8vokLcNNGCM
Very informative, thanks for the link!
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.
> 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?
It's hardly worth checking with the legacy media anymore. Really, why bother?
Because some of them still have standards. They will correct themselves if something was wrong.
Everyone can write a comment on Reddit / make a podcast / video / whatever claiming whatever they want. Unless you already know and trust them (which requires you to be able to cross-check their information), it's potentially as useful as a random LLM hallucination. Could be brilliantly spot on, or could be completely nonsense. No way of knowing unless you already know enough. (Because even cross-checking won't necessarily save you, if you cross-check multiple bullshit sources).
Media with standards (like the BBC, Guardian, Liberation, etc.) will do their best to report truthfully (even if sometimes with some bias), and will fix their mistakes if they're caught later on or the story evolves. Independent media checking organisations have shown time and time again that there is trustworthy media, you just need to know which it is, and always take a pinch of salt. It's wild to me that people will just dismiss rags such as Fox News and relatively quality media like Guardian in the same breath.
According to other news sources, the pilots lost their lives here, too.
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.
How did it end up like that with the nose up: what is holding it up?
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.
Front fell off, people deplaned (while still horizontal) which shifted the balance backwards. It’s sitting on the rear bulkhead,
I guess there is more weight in the relatively small section of the front that came off than I expected
I’d guess the front landing gear assembly is going to be fairly heavy, and appears to be missing. This model of plane also has its engines at the rear, not under the wing, which will move the balance to the back.
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.
The comments in /r/aviation see to think it’s a one (tired) man show at night.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1s16x61/comment/o...
Yet another blow to the confidence of flying in this country.
More accurately, the risk has increased by at least one order of magnitude, but the confidence of the public has largely stayed the same.
This comes to mind how during the Boeing news scandals, commenters would confidently argue "Flying is still ridiculously safe, statistically speaking", "these things happen every day, just underreported", and "you/people are irrational for not flying Boeing". It's a very curious argument to me. Is the ATC infrastructure issue analogous or not, etc.