Washington
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is placing tracking devices in airport automobiles after an Air Canada Express regional jet touchdown at LaGuardia Airport final month slammed into a fire truck on the runway, killing the plane’s two pilots.
Thirty-nine folks have been injured, together with the 2 firefighters within the truck that was hit.
The transponders permit floor tracking programs to establish a automobile and precisely plot it on a map displayed within the management tower, in addition to sound an alarm if a collision is about to occur.
“We will be expanding that capability across our airports, building on the technology already in place,” James Allen, chief communications officer for the Port Authority, stated.
In preliminary findings published last week, the National Transportation Safety Board famous LaGuardia is provided with an Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X, generally known as ASDE-X, but it surely didn’t warn controllers earlier than the crash as a result of lack of tracking devices within the vans.
“ASDE-X provides visual and aural alerts when it detects potential runway incursions or conflicts, giving controllers the ability to intervene before an accident occurs,” the NTSB stated. “The equipment did not provide a warning the night of the collision since the fire trucks did not have transponders and were only partially picked up by ground radar.”
The controller tried to cease the truck after they realized the crash was imminent, the NTSB reported, however the preliminary warning might have been misunderstood. The plane struck the fire truck at 104 mph.
The FAA issued up to date steerage in May 2025 to encourage broader use of transponders in automobiles at airports. Since December, a pilot program at Newark Liberty International Airport, which can also be operated by the Port Authority, has been testing the expertise.
NCS’s Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.