LaGuardia controller staffing may have violated procedures on night of collision, document shows
By Doyinsola Oladipo
NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) – Air traffic controller staff working at LaGuardia airport on the night an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck may have violated the facility’s procedures by combining roles before midnight, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The crash, which occurred around 11:37 p.m. at a New York airport on March 22 and killed both pilots, revived concerns about a shortage of U.S. air traffic control personnel and the workload of controllers across the country.
Staffing shortages, including at the executive level, are more often placing controllers in combined roles handling local air and ground traffic, according to several air traffic controllers across the country.
The National Transportation Safety Board said last week it was seeking information about the duties each controller performed as part of the crash investigation.
If the controller involved in the accident was performing both air and ground duties, this would be against the LaGuardia tower’s standard operating procedures.
The NTSB final report on a 1997 collision between a private jet and a vehicle at LaGuardia cited new procedures subsequently implemented at the New York airport to ensure that “local and ground locations were not combined before midnight.”
The rule remains in effect as of 2023, according to a LaGuardia Tower Standard Operating Procedures document seen by Reuters.
“Positions at LaGuardia Tower should not be consolidated into a single position before midnight local time or 90 minutes after the start of the shift, whichever is later,” said the 2023 document, which people familiar with the matter said remains current in 2026.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which runs U.S. air traffic control, did not respond to a request for comment.
CONTROLLER’S FUNCTIONS ARE NOT CLEAR
NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy told reporters last week that two controllers were working in the glass-enclosed section of the airport’s control tower at the time of the crash.
There was a local controller who managed active runways and nearby airspace, as well as a controller in charge who provided takeoff clearance to pilots, he said.
“It is unclear who carries out the duties of the ground controller. We have conflicting information,” he said, referring to the position that generally manages all aircraft and vehicle movements on taxiways, excluding active runways.
According to audio posted by LiveATC.net, multiple current and retired controllers said they believed the local controller who manages active runways also handles traffic on the ground.
The NTSB did not respond to a request for comment.
Air accident investigations often find that accidents result from multiple contributing factors rather than a single cause.
COMBINE LOCATIONS
The NTSB’s Homendy said the controller responsible for the security of the operations checked in at 10:30 p.m., and the local controller checked in at 10:45 p.m.
According to the LaGuardia standard operating procedures document, local and ground positions were not to be combined until midnight at the earliest.
The document also states that the positions will be consolidated into traffic permits only. The document stated that if the positions were combined, the positions would not be combined as the traffic volume increased.
On the night of the Air Canada crash, weather-related delays resulted in 70 commercial flights taking off or landing at the airport between 10pm and 11:37pm, compared to an average of 53 flights in the same time period since 2022, according to Cirium data.
Many controllers interviewed by Reuters described the workload that night as intense and said other controllers would often be brought in to manage the heavier number of flights than planned or would stay on beyond normal shift end times.
A current controller in the New York area said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media that local and ground positions must remain together until at least midnight.
“And that’s not even mentioning the traffic and volume and complexity that night,” he said.
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Jamie Freed)
