Investigators are examining whether an air traffic controller stepped away from their console to answer an emergency phone line in the seconds before a deadly collision at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board is probing the late-night crash of an Air Canada flight into a fire truck on March 22, which killed pilots Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther—the airport’s first fatal accident in more than 30 years. Sources told the New York Times that one line of inquiry is whether a controller left their workstation to reach a “crash phone,” a dedicated emergency line that, depending on tower layout, may not be within arm’s reach of active consoles. Two controllers were on duty at the time—standard overnight staffing—though investigators are also examining whether roles had been combined before midnight, a departure from standard procedure. The airport’s ground radar system failed to detect the fire truck because it lacked a transponder, meaning it was invisible to controllers. No conclusions have been reached.
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