Critical Shortage of Controllers Might be Cause of 2 Planes Crashing to Each Other At LaGuardia
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| Delta Airlines planes at La Guardia Airport in New York in 2023.Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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| NYPost Pic |
The New York Times
Two regional flights operated by a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines collided on a LaGuardia Airport taxiway on Wednesday evening, injuring one person, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
The Federal Aviation Administration said early Thursday that it was investigating the accident, and that its cause remained unclear.
A Bombardier CRJ-900 jet operated by Endeavor Air, the Delta subsidiary, was preparing to take off when it struck another Bombardier that was heading to a gate at 9:58 p.m., according to a statement from the Port Authority, which manages LaGuardia in Queens. Videos and photos posted on social media showed one of the planes apparently missing a wing.
Delta said early Thursday that its preliminary information suggested that the wing of the departing jet, operating as Endeavor Air Flight 5155, had made contact with the fuselage of the arriving jet.
“Air traffic control instructed Flight 5155 to hold short and yield to the other aircraft,” the F.A.A. said in a preliminary statement. At the same time, the agency said, Endeavor Air Flight 5047 was heading to its gate.
Delta apologized to the passengers on the flights, who were taken by bus to a terminal at the airport. They were given hotel accommodations and meals, the airline said, and were booked on flights for Thursday. The airline said that it was fully cooperating with the authorities in the investigation.
Delta said that the one flight attendant had reported a minor injury in the low-speed collision, and that no passengers were hurt.
Flight 5155, carrying two pilots, two flight attendants and 28 passengers, had been scheduled to depart to Roanoke, Va. Flight 5047 had arrived from Charlotte, N.C., carrying two pilots, two flight attendants and 57 passengers.
Airlines often use the CRJ-900, a single-aisle plane that can carry as many as 90 passengers, on shorter routes.
The LaGuardia collision happened in the first 24 hours of a government shutdown that has disrupted federal services and sent many federal employees home without pay. Air traffic controllers are working through the shutdown because they are considered essential workers, and the spending impasse was not expected to have a major immediate effect on air travel.
But the shutdown could become more disruptive to travelers the longer it persists. Because about a quarter of the nearly 45,000 people who work at the Federal Aviation Administration are being furloughed during the shutdown, some air services related to air traffic safety will be put on hold. And the F.A.A. said in August that it expected to hire at least 8,900 air traffic controllers by 2028, an effort that would be stalled by the government shutdown.
A critical shortage of air traffic controllers has contributed to aviation accidents and near-misses at several U.S. airports in recent years. In May, flights at Newark Airport were delayed for up to seven hours because there were not enough air traffic controllers scheduled to work.
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