Pilots Killed, Dozens Injured in LaGuardia Plane Collision

A late-night landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport ended in disaster Sunday when an Air Canada Express flight struck a Port Authority fire truck on the runway, killing the two pilots and sending more than 40 people to hospitals, officials said. The Jazz Aviation-operated plane from Montreal was nearing the end of its landing on Runway 4 around 11:30pm when it hit the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle that was responding to a separate incident, officials said, per NBC New York. A journalist who later visited the scene described a plane with "a sheared-off nose on the runway" near a damaged truck on its side, per the New York Times.

Two Port Authority police officers in the truck, including a sergeant, suffered broken bones and were taken to area hospitals. Forty-one of the 72 passengers and four crew members on the plane were also taken to hospitals with injuries, a Port Authority rep said, per the Times, which reports that nine remain hospitalized. The crash triggered a full ground stop at LaGuardia, which will remain closed until 2pm EST Monday, per the FAA. Hundreds of flights have been canceled. The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a "go team" to investigate the cause of the collision. The aircraft was moving at roughly 30mph at impact amid rainy conditions, per NBC.