Air Canada express crash at La Guardia

[sureLoss]

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c620w1...8e404ae14#post

A flight attendant was found alive and strapped into her seat, which was outside of the plane, sources told BBC's US partner CBS News.

The seat reportedly fell through a hole in the floor of the aircraft.

CBS reports the flight attendent has serious injuries, but they are not life threatening.

[WhiteTiger]

Having watched that video, and had a look at the airport 'map', I have to wonder if the truck driver ever even saw the plane. That runway the truck was on intersects at an angle, and the fire truck looks like it's on an angle as it crosses. But the driver would have been on the far side of the 'hit'.


So even if the driver did look or was looking 'down' the runway, towards the approaching plane at that time, he'd have seen nothing but his truck, much less a plan barrelling at him at 160+ kph.


At least, that's what it looks like, to me.

[btimbit]

So hard to say. Airports have lights everywhere, even on the ground it's so hard to see anything except reflections in the rain

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Dynamic

The problem is not the ATC system, it is a well well functioning system of managed and staffed correctly.

I might be misunderstanding you, but this statement is offensively false to that point that it reads like sarcasm.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Acey

I might be misunderstanding you, but this statement is offensively false to that point that it reads like sarcasm.

Edit: NM, I shouldn’t wade into a topic I know nothing about

[Ped]

Airside driving at night in the rain is insane. Even with 20 years experience, if i go to nights for the first time in a while, it takes time to orient. In the day its easy to look for planes, but at night as others have said its lights, and because it's not like regular driving, planes can come at you at an angle and its difficult to tell they are moving. Rain, as noted, makes things much harder as well.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Having watched that video, and had a look at the airport 'map', I have to wonder if the truck driver ever even saw the plane. That runway the truck was on intersects at an angle, and the fire truck looks like it's on an angle as it crosses. But the driver would have been on the far side of the 'hit'.


So even if the driver did look or was looking 'down' the runway, towards the approaching plane at that time, he'd have seen nothing but his truck, much less a plan barrelling at him at 160+ kph.


At least, that's what it looks like, to me.

I was thinking that, too. The passenger in the truck would have the best visibility. Would it be their responsibility to do the visual check? Swiss cheese effect?

[Ped]

Keep in mind that at 167 km an hour that even if a passenger in the truck saw it, it was likely far too late to react

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Acey

I might be misunderstanding you, but this statement is offensively false to that point that it reads like sarcasm.

I'm wondering whether that poster meant to put an "if" in their comment. That is, if it was well-staffed.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Ped

Keep in mind that at 167 km an hour that even if a passenger in the truck saw it, it was likely far too late to react

I think they did react by turning down the runway instead of going across it. At that point, they weren't avoiding the collision, though.

[lazypucker]

I still don't understand how come the plane has this much damage, given the speed and the weight. The plane should've kicked the truck away like a soccer ball...

[Huntingwhale]

Jesus that video is tragic. Terrible all around.

[the-rasta-masta]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

I still don't understand how come the plane has this much damage, given the speed and the weight. The plane should've kicked the truck away like a soccer ball...

Someone mentioned it earlier but that truck was probably carrying a lot of weight in water. If it's a bus or something the plane probably shreds right through it, but a large tank of water is probably the reason.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

I still don't understand how come the plane has this much damage, given the speed and the weight. The plane should've kicked the truck away like a soccer ball...

Imagine hitting a fire hydrant in one of those Hummer H2s, which were just hollow aluminum on a Ford Silverado pick-up chassis.

That truck weighed more than the plane with denser construction.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

I still don't understand how come the plane has this much damage, given the speed and the weight. The plane should've kicked the truck away like a soccer ball...

Lightweight construction, designed to handle many different stresses but not a head-on collision.

[btimbit]

Exactly, when empty that truck weighs more than that plane does empty. Then it gets filled with 17000L of water and 3000L of foam

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Imagine hitting a fire hydrant in one of those Hummer H2s, which were just hollow aluminum on a Ford Silverado pick-up chassis.

That truck weighed more than the plane with denser construction.

And at 100+ MPH no less...its like running a Go-Kart into a Tank.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Honest question...what did they do? Looks like they just blasted straight into it. Not saying there was anything they could do...just saying it looks like they did nothing other than maintain course.

Originally Posted by btimbit

All you can do at that point is max braking and hope for the best. Too slow to take off again, steer into the weeds at those speeds you kill even more people.

They also might not have seen the thing. In those conditions all the wipers do on a plane is smear the water into a slightly easier to see through film. Rain makes the light bend and contract, LGA is always packed too, there's lights everywhere from the ground and other planes, especially flashing lights from a convoy of emergency vehicles.

On this topic, I just read a statement from a passenger that said after landing he could tell they were braking a lot harder than normal.

Pilots did all they could

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Locke

And at 100+ MPH no less...its like running a Go-Kart into a Tank.

This is probably the most accurate analogy I've seen so far. These are relatively small jets that are very low to the ground. It's basically an extended private jet repurposed as an airliner. "Tank" is the only reasonable way to describe these fire trucks... they are solid as hell.

It's an airplane designed to be as light as possible vs a fire truck designed to be as sturdy as possible, it's no surprise who won the collision.

[BlackArcher101]

Very fortunate for the remaining passengers that after the initial collision, the truck rolled allowing the plane to ride over top of it and bleed off energy that way. This could have been much worse.