GoKawiilPilot safety concerns about New York’s LaGuardia airport were filed to aviation officials months before Sunday’s collision between an airplane and a firetruck left two pilots dead and 41 other people hospitalized.
According to the aviation safety reporting system administered by the US space agency Nasa, a pilot using the airport in the summer wrote, “Please do something,” after air traffic controllers failed to provide appropriate guidance about multiple nearby aircraft.
“The pace of operations is building in LGA,” they wrote, referring to the New York City airport, one of the busiest in the US. “The controllers are pushing the line.”
In a reference to the January 2025 mid-air collision over the Potomac River in Washington DC that killed more than 60 people, they said: “On thunderstorm days, LGA is starting to feel like [Ronald Reagan National airport] did before the accident there.”
The warning, first reported by CNN, showed that the pilot of the aircraft was concerned that LaGuardia’s control tower initiated a takeoff clearance for an aircraft when their plane was “only 300 feet high on final” approach on a different runway – and the departing plane had hesitated initiating its takeoff run.
“I think he or she thought twice before starting their takeoff roll,” the pilot of the aircraft said. The pilot mentioned how thick, smoky haze from wildfires in Canada at the time as well as a possible helicopter in the area had convinced him it was “safer to continue the approach and land [about] 10 seconds after the departing aircraft crossed our path”.
Otherwise, the pilot added, he would have been left “suddenly going around and trusting that the helicopter was not near the departure end of 22”, with the number referring to a runway.
The pilot concluded: “the [air traffic control] guidance … does not seem to give guidance on exactly how close aircraft in this situation can get.”
“Based on today’s and close calls I have seen over the years for [runways at the Philadelphia and Newark international airports], it seems to be a [judgment] call by the local controller.”
They also said that a runway lighting system had been turned off. In another report since January 2025, a pilot said their aircraft had been cleared to cross a runway – but crossing “we noticed an aircraft we thought was landing at [runway] 31C seemingly headed for us”.
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