Discussion
cjrp: ATC recording on https://www.liveatc.net/recordings.php Fire truck was cleared to cross and then told to stop. I'm not sure if they were the only controller working at the time, they continued working after the incident which seems unusual; my understanding is normally they'd be relieved by another controller.
brownieeee: They were indeed the only controller, working both ground and tower frequencies.
cmiles8: Emergency vehicles were en route to another emergency in progress on the other runway. Sadly it sounds like a fire truck was cleared to cross the active runway moments before the CRJ landed. By the time the controller realized that mistake it was too late.
_moof: I'm very, very curious about whether the ARFF crew visually cleared the runway and final before crossing the hold short line. It's standard procedure for flight crew to do this, specifically to mitigate the risk of ATC errors.
bombcar: At night with multiple runways it can be very hard to see a plane on final.Still, I'm always hesitant to cross an active runway.
newsclues: https://x.com/thenewarea51/status/2035926457394876837ATC audiomake a mistake, recognize it, and then have to continue on your job, knowing you likely just killed people, because if you don't others will die.The weight of some jobs is immense, and our civilization relies upon workers to shoulder the burden everyday.
wat10000: And these guys are tremendously overworked because the government can’t get its shit together to hire enough people to staff at appropriate levels.
callmeal: "Government"? Let's call it what it is. ITYM "Republicans".
tatersolid: The shortage of ATC staff dates back to the Clinton Administration. It’s just hard to attract people into a 5+ year training program for a very stressful job where you might get bounced near the end with no payout and no transferrable job skills.
achr2: No the shortage goes back to Regan when their justified strike was busted. It ended the PATCO “union” and was a negative turning point for labour unions in general.
gortok: Reports are there were fog and rain at La Guardia at the time of the incident. They were on a short final, and it’s entirely possible they were not visible to the fire truck’s crew.
