A firefighter whose truck collided with an Air Canada jet on a runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York heard an air traffic controller warn “stop, stop, stop” but didn’t know who it was for, federal investigators said Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report that a crash prevention system didn’t generate an audio or visual alert in the control tower, and that runway entrance lights that act as stop lights for crossing traffic were on until about three seconds before the March 22 collision. The system is designed to turn the lights off two or three seconds before a plane reaches an intersection, the report said.
After the air traffic controller’s initial warning, the fire truck’s turret operator heard the controller say, “Truck 1, stop, stop, stop,” and realized he was telling the truck to halt, the report said. By that time, the truck was already on the runway as Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was landing and speeding toward it…