Tragic air traffic control audio before Air Canada plane crashed into fire truck killing two
The audio from air traffic control at New York's LaGuardia airport has helped explain the tragic crash involving an Air Canada passenger plane and a firefighting vehicle.
Air Canada Express Flight 8646 operated by Jazz Aviation collided with a fire truck on the runway while landing in New York after taking off from Montreal.
The crash is understood to have taken place late at 11:40 p.m on Sunday night (Monday morning UK time).
The plane's pilot and co-pilot where both killed in the collision, with the plane believed to have been travelling between 24 to 30 mph at the time of the crash.
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Audio from the airport's air traffic control reveals the moments leading up to the crash and the aftermath, with a truck being given permission to move before the controller repeatedly tries to tell it to 'stop'.
"Stop Truck 1, stop, stop, stop!" the controller was heard to shout, before the air traffic controller had to switch attention to another plane that had been coming in to land and ordered it to 'go around runway'.
"Jazz 646, I see you collided with vehicle here, just hold position. I know you can't move. The vehicles are responding to you now."
Another pilot asked him if the runway was closed and he repeated the order to go around the runway, while another pilot whose plane had been on the ground said 'that wasn't good to watch'.
The controller said: "Yeah, I know, I was here. I tried to reach out to them. I stopped and we were dealing with an emergency earlier and I messed up."
The grounded pilot reassured him: "No man, you did the best you could."
According to CNN, the firefighting vehicle the Air Canada plane collided with had been responding to concerns over the smell coming from the cockpit of another plane at the time of the crash.
LaGuardia airport was closed as a result of the tragic collision.
Jazz Aviation confirmed there had been 72 passengers and four crew members on board the flight they had been operating.
Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said the plane's two pilots had been confirmed dead and that 41 passengers and crew had been taken to hospital with 32 of those since released.
She said some of the other injured were in a 'serious' condition, and NBC reports that two officers stationed at the fire truck were taken to hospital with broken limbs.
Joe Harker