Two air traffic controllers at New York’s LaGuardia Airport could lose their jobs after allegedly leaving the control tower about an hour before their scheduled shifts ended on the night an Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire truck, killing both pilots.
The development has put fresh attention on what happened inside the LaGuardia tower that night, but it also raises a wider question for U.S. aviation: how much pressure is being placed on an already stretched air traffic control system?
The Federal Aviation Administration is pursuing disciplinary action against the two controllers. Firing is among the possible penalties, according to a government official familiar with the matter. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The controllers were scheduled to remain at the airport beyond the time of the March 22 crash. Their early departure left two controllers in the tower as traffic picked up and an emergency was unfolding elsewhere at the airport.
That timing has become an important part of the scrutiny surrounding the accident.
Controllers left before the crash
The two employees are accused of leaving LaGuardia roughly an hour before their scheduled shifts ended.
In air traffic control, leaving early under circumstances like these is sometimes referred to as an “early shove.” Controllers and former FAA officials told news organizations that the practice has occurred at facilities around the country, particularly when a required break falls near the end of a shift.
The FAA is now taking a harder line on the practice.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has described early departures as a form of timecard fraud, arguing that employees who leave before completing their paid shifts can shift additional work onto their colleagues.
“The vast majority” of controllers do their jobs properly, Duffy said, while those who take advantage of taxpayers and add to the workload of other controllers cannot be ignored.
The FAA has also said it will hold employees accountable while maintaining the safety and efficiency of the national airspace system.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said it is discussing the allegations with FAA leadership but declined to comment further.
A difficult night at LaGuardia
The circumstances at LaGuardia were far from routine when the Air Canada Express flight came in to land.
Weather disruptions earlier in the day had created a backlog of flights, leaving the airport busier than expected late at night. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, arrivals and departures after 10 p.m. were more than double the number originally scheduled.
Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was approaching LaGuardia shortly before midnight.
At the same time, airport emergency crews were responding to another problem. A departing United Airlines aircraft had reported a strong odor that was making flight attendants feel ill, prompting firefighters and other emergency vehicles to head toward the aircraft.
The convoy included several fire trucks, a police car and a stair truck.
That meant the controllers working in the tower were dealing with both aircraft traffic and an emergency response on the ground.
The government official familiar with the investigation said the controllers who had left could have provided additional backup had they stayed until the end of their shifts.
How the Air Canada plane collided with the truck
The staffing issue is only one element being examined by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Air Canada Express CRJ900 was carrying 76 people when it struck the fire truck on the runway. Pilots Antoine Forest, 30, and Mackenzie Gunther, 24, were killed in the crash.
Thirty-nine people were taken to hospitals, including six who suffered serious injuries. A flight attendant survived despite being thrown from the aircraft onto the tarmac.
The collision was LaGuardia’s first fatal crash in 34 years.
A preliminary NTSB report released in April showed that several events unfolded in rapid succession before the impact.
A controller had cleared the fire truck to cross the runway. The vehicle began moving while warning lights intended to stop crossing traffic were still illuminated.
The firefighters then heard an urgent warning from the tower.
“Stop, stop, stop.”
The warning came just seconds before the collision.
The fire truck also lacked a transponder. That created another problem because LaGuardia’s surface monitoring system could not reliably track the vehicle’s position. The system consequently did not predict a conflict with the approaching aircraft and did not produce an automatic audio or visual alert, according to the NTSB’s preliminary findings.
By the time the warning was understood, the truck was already on the runway and the Air Canada aircraft was rapidly approaching.
Staffing is becoming a bigger aviation issue
The controversy comes as the FAA continues to deal with persistent concerns over air traffic controller staffing across the country.
Air traffic controllers cannot be replaced quickly. Training is lengthy, certification requirements are strict, and controllers must be qualified for specific positions before they can work them independently.
That leaves facilities with limited flexibility when traffic suddenly increases.
Controllers interviewed by Reuters described the workload at LaGuardia that night as unusually heavy. In busy situations, additional controllers may be called in or employees may remain beyond their scheduled end times.
That practice sits uneasily alongside the FAA’s push to stop controllers from leaving early.
For the agency, the argument is straightforward: employees are expected to work the shifts for which they are paid.
For controllers, however, the debate is more complicated. Scheduling, breaks, overtime, fatigue and staffing levels all affect how a facility operates during a busy period.
The LaGuardia crash has brought those competing concerns into sharp focus.
The crash investigation is still underway
The NTSB has not concluded that the two controllers’ early departure caused the crash.
That distinction is important.
Investigators are looking at the entire sequence of events, including the runway crossing, communications between the tower and emergency crews, the airport’s surface surveillance system, traffic levels and staffing.
The agency has declined to comment on the reports concerning the controllers while the investigation continues.
The final report is expected to take considerably longer, with investigators likely to continue working into next year before issuing their conclusions.
Until then, it remains impossible to say how much influence the controllers’ early departure had on the outcome.
What happens next
The FAA’s disciplinary case and the NTSB’s safety investigation are separate processes, and the two could produce very different conclusions.
The FAA may determine that the controllers violated workplace rules and should be disciplined. The NTSB, meanwhile, will be focused on identifying the factors that contributed to the fatal collision and determining what changes could prevent a similar accident.
That distinction could become especially significant as the FAA and the air traffic controllers’ union negotiate a new contract that could include changes to scheduling.
For the traveling public, the larger issue is not simply whether two controllers should have stayed at work longer.
It is whether LaGuardia and other major airports have enough personnel, technology and safeguards to cope when several problems occur at once.
On March 22, weather delays had increased traffic, an emergency response was taking place on the ground and aircraft were continuing to arrive.
The investigation will determine how those factors came together.
The tragedy has already raised a difficult question for the FAA: where should responsibility fall when individual decisions and broader system pressures meet in the same place, at the same time?
For more on LaGuardia incident, see: LaGuardia Crash Exposes Critical Runway Safety Gaps
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