Officials investigating the collision between an Air Canada plane and a fire truck on a New York airport runway this week revealed on Tuesday what was captured by the cockpit voice recorder in the final three minutes before the crash, shedding more light on the last moments of two deceased pilots.
In a National Transportation Safety Board press conference at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City, where the fatal collision occurred at 11:30 p.m. Sunday night, investigator in chief Doug Brazy read aloud a summary of the final transmissions between the tower, the aircraft and the Port Authority vehicle.
For the first two minutes and four seconds, everything proceeded normally with one of the Air Canada pilots getting permission from the air traffic control tower for clearance to land on runway four, lowering the plane’s landing gear, setting its wing flaps and confirming the landing checklist.
“At one minute and three seconds (before the crash), the airport vehicle made a radio transmission to the tower, but that transmission was stepped on by another radio transmission and the source of that transmission has yet to be identified,” Brazy said.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy later clarified that being “stepped on” means a mic was turned on at the same time or there was some other interference.
“That would be significant because it could mean somebody might not hear the other part of the communication,” she told reporters.
Fourteen seconds after the aircraft informs the tower it was at 500 feet on a stable approach, the controller asks which vehicle needs to cross a runway. Someone in the fire truck, identified as truck one, responds 12 seconds later and, after a quick procedural exchange, is cleared to “cross runway four at taxiway delta” and acknowledges.
Meanwhile, in the Air Canada cockpit, an enhanced ground proximity warning system is calling out altitudes of 100, 50, 30, 20 and 10 feet as the flight descends.
Nine seconds before the impact, the controller abruptly tells truck one to stop and one second later “there was a sound consistent with the airplane’s landing gear touching down on the runway,” Brazy said.
Per the recording, one pilot transferred controls of the aircraft to another just two seconds after touchdown, which was six seconds before impact.
“We do know that the first officer was flying and transferred control to the captain,” Homendy said.
The flight crew has been identified as
, a 30-year-old from Coteau-du-Lac, a Quebec city, and First Officer
, a graduate of Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto.
“At four seconds, the tower again instructed truck one to stop,” Brazy said.
“At 0 seconds, the recording ended.”
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