Air Canada RJ impact with ground vehicle, at least 2 fatalities

[RSD]

A little bit of information from a friend in the U.S. - the odor on the United that ARFF were responding to was caused by deicing fluid getting into the APU.

 

[RooFlyer]

Extended ATC audio, covering all the United issue, calls and movements and leading through to the Jazz CRJ collision, with some speculative animation.

Appears from this that the truck proceeded onto the runway after it was told to stop, although the instruction was unclear and not immediately followed up.

This may be useful when listening re the taxiways etc

 

[jb747]

2. Clearance for the ground vehicle movement was given probably 20-30 secs before a number of stop commands were issued, a cancellation of the landing clearance/go around commandshould have been given at that stage.

Early clearances are yet another of the silly things done by ATC in the USA. It was common going into LAX to be issued with a clearance with a couple of aircraft in front of you for the same runway. Might make it easier, but devalues the entire idea of a clearance.

The timing is interesting....something like 20 seconds before impact the aircraft would have been landing, and once reverse is selected, the go around option effectively expires.

 

[markis10]

Early clearances are yet another of the silly things done by ATC in the USA. It was common going into LAX to be issued with a clearance with a couple of aircraft in front of you for the same runway. Might make it easier, but devalues the entire idea of a clearance.

The timing is interesting....something like 20 seconds before impact the aircraft would have been landing, and once reverse is selected, the go around option effectively expires.

I agree, I posted that before seeing a better breakdown of the timeline, no go around was possible. I doubt the truck was at the holding point when crossing was requested.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not sure if it’s been posted already but there’s footage of the moments leading up to, and of the impact, in this post by OMAAT: Ugh: The Runway Lights That Should've Prevented The LaGuardia Tragedy

 

[RooFlyer]

FWIW (and maybe not much!), here is an early NTSB press briefing. It actually starts at 44:10 (and early interesting comment that NTSB officers were delayed getting into ?terminal because of TSA delays and 'queues around the building'). Guy gives a pre-impact timeline from about 48:55, aircraft 500' above ground.

 

[justinbrett]

and thus frequencies were not being rebroadcast,

This has now been shown to be incorrect - as the Truck 1 request to cross the runway, and ATC clearance to do so, were heard on the CVR - and the multiple directions to Truck 1 to stop.

 

[markis10]

This has now been shown to be incorrect - as the Truck 1 request to cross the runway, and ATC clearance to do so, were heard on the CVR - and the multiple directions to Truck 1 to stop.

That’s good, as it should be. Unfortunately it’s another back up system that didn’t change the outcome.

 

[Himeno]

FWIW (and maybe not much!), here is an early NTSB press briefing. It actually starts at 44:10 (and early interesting comment that NTSB officers were delayed getting into ?terminal because of TSA delays and 'queues around the building'). Guy gives a pre-impact timeline from about 48:55, aircraft 500' above ground.

At least one of the NTSB team was stuck at TSA in Texas.

 

[markis10]

Not sure if it’s been posted already but there’s footage of the moments leading up to, and of the impact, in this post by OMAAT: Ugh: The Runway Lights That Should've Prevented The LaGuardia Tragedy

What’s not mentioned in that article is the system requires two sides to work, the network installed (millions $) and the ground traffic to have an appropriate transponder costing less than $1K onboard. None of the trucks had this, not one that could have been the lead responder. The industry learns from its mistakes and systems issues, Zagreb and the airspace divided by altitude rather then geography is a case in point. Here we have a massive investment that was never going to work while half the solution was not in place. It’s not a magic bullet, but it might have helped reduce the impact.

LGA has had numerous calls for safety improvements, I am starting to understand why.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

What’s not mentioned in that article is the system requires two sides to work, the network installed (millions $) and the ground traffic to have an appropriate transponder costing less than $1K onboard. None of the trucks had this, not one that could have been the lead responder. The industry learns from its mistakes and systems issues, Zagreb and the airspace divided by altitude rather then geography is a case in point. Here we have a massive investment that was never going to work while half the solution was not in place. It’s not a magic bullet, but it might have helped reduce the impact.

LGA has had numerous calls for safety improvements, I am starting to understand why.

I’m not sure OMAAT is a definitive source for analysis. The video was the interesting bit.

I would have thought, ultimately, any vehicle crossing an active runway should be looking for oncoming aircraft. Regardless of any clearances. Much like it’s a wise action for folk to look both ways at a level crossing, just in case the barriers have malfunctioned.

La Guardia seems to be an airport to avoid in dawn/dusk or nighttime. Anytime lighting is low.

 

[justinbrett]

Don't need high tech solutions.

When I did my ATC training, we were taught whenever you give a clearance for something to go on to the runway, you put a strip in your runway bay.

You clear an aircraft to land, it goes in your runway bay.

You want to clear a vehicle to cross the runway, you check your runway bay - and then you see the strip of the aircraft that's been cleared to land.


(not my pic but similar principle).

 

[markis10]

Don't need high tech solutions.

When I did my ATC training, we were taught whenever you give a clearance for something to go on to the runway, you put a strip in your runway bay.

Cannot argue against that, same here, didn’t have many SAS flights though in YSSY

 

[jb747]

I would have thought, ultimately, any vehicle crossing an active runway should be looking for oncoming aircraft. Regardless of any clearances. Much like it’s a wise action for folk to look both ways at a level crossing, just in case the barriers have malfunctioned.

Exactly. Even with clearances that we'd all confirmed hearing, we still had every pilot, look out to make sure the runway was clear. You only need to be wrong once!

 

[RooFlyer]

I would have thought, ultimately, any vehicle crossing an active runway should be looking for oncoming aircraft. Regardless of any clearances. Much like it’s a wise action for folk to look both ways at a level crossing, just in case the barriers have malfunctioned.

Def. If you look at the angle of taxiway Delta to the runway, and the fact that the driver is in the LH seat, so the RH guy has to crane and look back over his RH shoulder, in this case while the vehicle is moving up to the runway, to see a small jet that's already on the ground with the usual spectrum of other lights behind the jet - I don't think they had a chance. Even if the lookout saw the jet 2 seconds before they entered the runway, still too late - guy calls out, driver hears, then reacts. Thought they had clearance (didn't hear the first 'Truck 1 stop' which would have prevented this) so didn't stop.

 

[RSD]

Def. If you look at the angle of taxiway Delta to the runway, and the fact that the driver is in the LH seat, so the RH guy has to crane and look back over his RH shoulder, in this case while the vehicle is moving up to the runway, to see a small jet that's already on the ground with the usual spectrum of other lights behind the jet - I don't think they had a chance. Even if the lookout saw the jet 2 seconds before they entered the runway, still too late - guy calls out, driver hears, then reacts. Thought they had clearance (didn't hear the first 'Truck 1 stop' which would have prevented this) so didn't stop.

It was an Oshkosh Striker 1500, and in those the driver actually sits on the logitudinal centreline, the other crewmember usually sits in a seat that is to the right of the (not) centre console and back a bit. If it is carrying extra crew then they sit in two seats that are on the back wall to the left of the driver. Even with the angle of taxiway Delta, the crewmember on the right is far enough back that the driver would have had a clear view up the runway - and the glass on the sides goes back far enough that the view wouldn't have been impeded. The guy in the right seat should have been looking up the runway too to make sure that nothing was coming.

 

[justinbrett]

Thought they had clearance (didn't hear the first 'Truck 1 stop' which would have prevented this) so didn't stop.

They did have clearance. Clearances can be rescinded but it's not immediate and not guaranteed. The phraseology used by the controller was sloppy in this instance and should definitely have included the reason - eg "Truck 1 Hold Short Runway 4, aircraft on short final". He ran the instruction into the previous instruction to Frontier 4195 to stop and it's really unclear he's trying to tell two different people to stop. Even if you mess the callsign up or omit it, give the reason and maybe he can work it out - and also gives a heads up to the aircraft that there's a problem (not that they can do much at this point).

The instruction to stop was 9 seconds before the end of the CVR, most likely the time of impact, so it was probably all over by this point unfortunately. The clearance to cross was 20 seconds before, and read back 17 seconds before. I think he just forgot about the aircraft on final until it was too late.

 

[RooFlyer]

Thanks @RSD . With your experience I can't argue, but considering the angle of the taxiway it still seems a steep ask to have someone in the centre to look that far behind; and the person sitting behind and to the right has virtually no glass to look back through (seems to me).

Q: Which crewmember is on the radio with Ground?

 

[RSD]

Thanks @RSD . With your experience I can't argue, but considering the angle of the taxiway it still seems a steep ask to have someone in the centre to look that far behind; and the person sitting behind and to the right has virtually no glass to look back through (seems to me).

Q: Which crewmember is on the radio with Ground?

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Those are an earlier model of the Striker - I actually did my ARFF qual on the 8x8 version of that model. You can see how far forward the driver sits in this one - the truck involved in the incident was a 4x4 version of the one in this photo. This later model is a lot nicer to drive than the earlier model that I trained on - a lot of the time in the old model the body felt like it wasn't connected to the chassis when cornering - they had the handling of a very drunken pig.

I was always trained to treat an active runway as having a giveway sign even if you had clearence.