The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed that LaGuardia Airport’s surveillance system, used to track the surface movement of aircraft and ground vehicles on the runway, did not generate an alert at the time of Sunday night’s plane crash due to the proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging.
The airport’s ASDE-X alert system is the tool that did not work as intended the night of the incident, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. The system is used to help reduce runway collisions, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Multiple vehicles were moving near the runway moments before the incident, though no specific number of vehicles was disclosed.
The NTSB official stressed there is much “conflicting” information that is preliminary and subject to change as the investigation continues.
Around 11:40 p.m. Sunday, an Air Canada CRJ-900 jet crashed into a Port Authority emergency vehicle at the New York City airport. The two pilots were killed, and dozens more were injured. There were 72 passengers and four crew members on the Jazz Aviation flight.
Notably, the crashed ground vehicle had no transponder that could have been used to trigger the warning system.
Two workers were stationed in the air traffic control tower at the time of the crash, Homendy said. One was a local controller, and the second was the controller in charge. Both started their shifts between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m. that night.
The NTSB has to review the logs on who was and who wasn’t in the air traffic control tower because the chairwoman said there were some “inconsistencies” in the data.
Homendy expressed concerns about the midnight shift for air traffic controllers, but she noted it remains unclear whether fatigue played a role here.
“In this situation, for the midnight shift, it is standard operating procedure that they only have two on duty, and those two perform the duties of other controllers. That is our understanding right now. However, we’re going to further dig into that as part of our investigation,” Homendy said.
“Certainly, I can tell you that our air traffic control team has stated this is a problem, that this is a concern for them for years, that they have had this concern for quite a long time,” she added. “I can understand it’s a concern, especially if there’s a heavy workload.”
LaGuardia is one of the busiest airports in the nation, overseeing more than 900 flights per day.
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Homendy also emphasized the importance of an updated air traffic control system that can prevent runway collisions like the one at LaGuardia.
“We have an old air traffic control system,” she said. “This is why [Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy] talks about that we need to upgrade, but we also need to improve safety across the air. It’s not just air traffic control. It’s safety all around.”
