[Ryan Coke]

Double yikes. Listening to the audio gives me that sick feeling in my stomach, same as all the parties involved had I’m sure.

It is bad for the AA crew, but there are often other contributing factors. Taxi clearances in the states are often much more vague than in Canada, where they are very specific and precise. And as for having the runway already briefed and programmed, I believe LaGuardia (and certainly several other US airports) don’t give the departure runway until you get your taxi clearance. So it’s possible they had the other runway programmed and didn’t catch the change to plan. That’s always an annoyance when departing those airports, as it does create issues with preparation, then potentially having to configure for a different runway during the taxi.

Those things didn’t necessarily contribute, but just examples of issues that may have played a factor.