Air Canada Plane Hits Fire Truck on New York Airport Runway, Pilot-Co-Pilot Killed

ILLUSTRATION UNSPLASH/Juan Ortiz

JAKARTA - An Air Canada passenger plane collided with a fire truck on the runway of New York's LaGuardia Airport, United States.

According to a CNN report, citing local officials, the accident killed the pilot and co-pilot of the plane and injured two others.

The crash occurred Sunday at 11:40 p.m. local time, when an Air Canada flight operated by Jazz Aviation crashed into a rescue vehicle deployed to handle another incident, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

"The airport is currently closed to facilitate emergency response and a thorough investigation," said a spokesman who also confirmed that the immediate emergency response protocol was activated as soon as the incident occurred, reported ANTARA from Anadolu, Monday, March 23.

Two people in a fire truck were reported injured after colliding with the plane. They are known to be responding to a complaint of an unknown odor in the cockpit that was reported by another plane.

Air Canada said the CRJ-900-model plane was carrying 72 passengers and 4 flight crew when the incident occurred. As a result of the accident, LaGuardia Airport was closed starting Sunday evening local time.

The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) issued an instruction to stop all departing flights at LaGuardia, effective until 18:00 GMT (Tuesday 01:00 WIB) with the possibility of a very high extension of the closure.