LaGuardia Crash: How Pilots Saved Lives

It's March 25.

You're listening to Canada News today, AI-powered local news.

I'm Corey, with the story, a tragic crash in New York's LaGuardia airport has experts

scratching their heads over why it wasn't deadlier.

An air-Canada express flight for Montreal slammed into a fire truck on the runway Sunday

night, shortly after 11.30pm, killing the two.

Canadian pilots and sending more than 40 people to the hospital.

Air traffic control had cleared the plane to land less than two minutes before giving

the go-ahead for the heavy fire truck between 25 and 50 tons to cross the active runway.

The controller spotted the danger and yelled, stop 12 times in just 10 seconds, but got no

response from the truck.

Aviation pros are stunned.

The damage stayed mostly to the front of the plane.

Retired air-Canada pilot Benoit Gauthier notes that cockpits aren't built tough like

the rest of the fuselage.

Retired mostly of lightweight fiberglass, and composites for flying, not smashing into

solid objects.

Experts credit the pilot's quick breaking and the way the plane's nose jolted upward

on impact, which sent the energy upward instead of ripping through.

The whole 36 meter airliner, that kept the worse from spreading farther back.

As investigators dig into what went wrong with that key warning system, the focus stays

on how such a close call spared more lives in an event pilots.

They've never seen in decades of flying.