2 Pilots Dead at la Guardia Airport When Truck Crashed into Plane

The Latest as of this morning:

The pilots of an Air Canada Express plane were killed and dozens of passengers and crew members were hospitalized, officials said. The airport was closed until at least 2 p.m., and hundreds of flights were canceled.

A runway collision at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday killed two people, injured dozens more and shut down one of the busiest domestic airports in the region.

The crash occurred when an Air Canada  jet landing on Sunday collided with a Port Authority fire truck that had been responding to a separate incident. Investigators were working on Monday morning to determine the cause of the accident, which killed the plane’s pilots. It appeared to be the first fatal accident at LaGuardia since 1992.

The disruption was expected to ripple across the region and the nation at the start of the workweek, with hundreds of flights canceled as of Monday morning. New York City officials urged drivers to avoid the area around LaGuardia, warning of road closures and traffic delays.

A recording of audio from the air traffic tower, which was verified by The New York Times, indicated that the controllers may have been distracted by an earlier incident at the airport at the time of the accident on Sunday. It was unclear to what they were referring.

Forty-one passengers and crew members were taken to the hospital, Kathryn Garcia, the executive director of the airport operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference early Monday. She said that 32 of them had been released, and that some of the others had been seriously injured.

Two officers in the fire truck were among those hospitalized and were in stable condition, Ms. Garcia said. The truck was responding to a call from another aircraft whose pilot had reported an issue with odor in the cabin, she said.

The collision, which occurred at around 11:40 p.m. Sunday, involved Air Canada Express Flight 8646, which had departed from Montreal and landed at LaGuardia late Sunday. The CRJ-900 jet was operated by Jazz Aviation LP, which said in a statement that a preliminary passenger list indicated the flight was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members.

The Federal Aviation Administration first issued a ground stop at LaGuardia early Monday as emergency crews swarmed the damaged jet on a runway. A New York Times journalist saw police vehicles and fire trucks next to a white Air Canada Express plane with a sheared-off nose. A damaged truck lay on its side nearby.

LaGuardia, one of three major airports serving the New York City area, is a critical hub for the busy Northeast corridor, with nearly 900 departures and arrivals each day, according to the Port Authority. About half the flights to and from LaGuardia are for Delta Air Lines, which said on Monday that it had canceled flights through the afternoon and that more cancellations could follow.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

T.S.A. disruptions: Earlier on Sunday, travelers at LaGuardia endured hourslong security lines tied to a nationwide shortage of Transportation Security Administration workers. Thousands of T.S.A. employees are working without pay amid a partial government shutdown. Air traffic controllers are being paid during the shutdown because Congress has already funded their employer, the Department of Transportation.

Jet operator: Jazz Aviation LP is Canada’s largest regional airline, serving 70 destinations across Canada and the United States. It operates flights under the Air Canada Express brand under an agreement with Air Canada, the country’s flag carrier.

Ripple effects: Disruptions caused by the crash will mostly fall on regional and domestic travelers. Unlike John F. Kennedy International Airport or Newark Liberty International Airport, two other major hubs serving the New York City area, LaGuardia operates under a Port Authority rule limiting most nonstop flights to destinations within 1,500 miles.