LaGuardia staffing lapse draws scrutiny

Questions over staffing and tower procedures at New York’s LaGuardia Airport have intensified after documents indicated air traffic control roles may have been combined before the time allowed under local operating rules on the night an Air Canada regional jet collided with a fire truck, killing both pilots. The collision took place at about 11:37 pm local time on March 22, when Air Canada Express Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, struck the vehicle on Runway 4.

The focus of the latest scrutiny is whether the airport’s local and ground control functions were merged too early. A LaGuardia tower standard operating procedures document seen by Reuters says positions are not to be consolidated before midnight local time, or 90 minutes after the start of the shift, whichever is later. Reuters reported that people familiar with the matter said the 2023 document remained current in 2026.

That detail has become central because investigators are still trying to determine exactly which controller was handling ground duties when the crash happened. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said two controllers were working in the glass-enclosed cab of the tower at the time: a local controller managing active runways and immediate airspace, and a controller-in-charge who was also issuing departure clearances. She said investigators had received conflicting information on who was performing the ground controller’s role.

The collision has also revived broader concerns about controller workload at one of the country’s busiest airports. Reuters reported that weather-related disruption pushed traffic at LaGuardia far above what had been scheduled that night. Between 10 pm and 11:37 pm, 70 commercial flights took off or landed, compared with 31 that had been scheduled and an average of 53 during the same window on Sunday evenings in March since 2022, according to Cirium data cited by Reuters. Several current and former controllers told the news agency that additional staff would ordinarily have been brought in, or kept on duty longer, to deal with that level of traffic.

The immediate chain of events was set off by a separate emergency. According to Reuters, a United Airlines flight declared an emergency over a bad odour after aborting take-off twice because of an anti-ice system fault. That led a controller to clear a fire truck to cross the runway to assist. Audio reviewed by investigators and reported by Reuters suggests the controller then realised the vehicle was in the path of the arriving Air Canada aircraft and tried unsuccessfully to stop it.

Investigators have stressed that air disasters rarely stem from a single error. The NTSB has already identified other issues that night. Homendy said the airport’s ground surveillance system failed to generate an alert warning of the vehicle’s proximity to the runway. She also said the fire truck did not have a transponder, meaning its position was not being electronically transmitted to air traffic control. At the same time, runway status lights designed to warn when it is unsafe to cross were functioning, raising further questions about why the vehicle entered the runway.

Official statements have so far offered a mixed picture. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said LaGuardia was staffed with 33 certified controllers and six trainees against a target of 37, suggesting the facility met staffing expectations overall. But that metric does not answer the narrower question now at the heart of the investigation: whether the distribution of duties inside the tower on that particular late-night shift complied with local rules and matched the traffic conditions on the ground.

The rule against combining local and ground roles before midnight appears to have deep roots. Reuters reported that an NTSB final report into a 1997 collision at LaGuardia between a private jet and a vehicle referred to procedures introduced afterward to ensure those positions would not be merged before midnight. That history gives the current inquiry added weight, because it suggests the safeguard was created in response to an earlier safety failure at the same airport.

The NTSB’s investigation remains in its early stages. Its public case page says the information now available is preliminary and subject to change, with a factual preliminary report expected within 30 days of the accident and a final report, including probable cause and contributing factors, expected in 12 to 24 months. For now, the emerging picture is of a crowded night operation shaped by weather delays, a separate aircraft emergency, limited overnight staffing and unresolved questions over who was controlling what when seconds mattered most.