Why the Plane's Nose Was Obliterated in LaGuardia Crash

As investigators look into how a fire truck and an arriving Air Canada flight from Montreal both ended up on the same runway late Sunday night at LaGuardia, Scientific American reports the answer to one question—why was the plane so badly damaged?— is already fairly clear. Aviation experts say the answer lies in jets' very intentional construction. They are built to handle turbulence, bird strikes, and even belly landings, but not car-like head-on crashes.

Aircraft lack features such as energy-absorbing frames and airbags; their structures are a constant compromise between strength and weight. The nose tip, which houses radar, is plastic, not metal, making it especially fragile. It's "built to house and protect that equipment from the weather or from bird strikes or hail," Canadian aviation expert John Gradek said in an interview with CKOM. And "if it [were] metal, the radar wouldn't be able to function," explains Michael McCormick, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University associate professor in air traffic management. (This video shows the inside of a nose cone.)