Nasa reports show repeated warnings of close calls before crash that killed two pilots and injured 41 others
Pilot 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.”
