NEW YORK (AP) — It took less than a minute for a routine landing to spiral into a deadly crash Sunday at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. But the collision between an Air Canada flight and a fire truck crossing the runway was the culmination of a series of events that began much earlier.
The Associated Press created this timeline based on a review of air traffic control recordings and information from the Federal Aviation Administration, publicly available flight tracking data and the National Transportation Safety Board, including information it obtained from the jet’s cockpit voice recorder.
A late departure from Montreal
10:12 p.m.: Air Canada Express Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, leaves Montréal–Trudeau International Airport, two hours and 13 minutes late. By the time the aircraft reaches New York, it is part of an influx of late-arriving flights, including some waiting extended periods for a gate.
Issues on the ground at LaGuardia
11:16:42 p.m.: A United aircraft, Flight 2384, aborts takeoff for a second time because of an anti-ice warning light in the cockpit.
11:20:48 p.m.: “We have an odor on the plane as well here at this time,” the United pilot reports. “We are going to be going back to the gate, request fire as well,” using shorthand for the airport’s fire rescue team.
11:21:12 p.m.: Another pilot chimes in: “If that’s a sewer smell … we smelled that too going around the terminal there.”
11:22:2...

18 hours ago
5










![‘NCIS’ Shocker: Rocky Carroll Tells All on His Unexpected [SPOILER] and Playing Director Vance for Nearly Two Decades](https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2938315_5772bc-e1774400046519.jpg)


English (US) ·