An air traffic controller was heard saying he “messed up” after the horrific Air Canada crash in New York.
It took merely seconds for the calm inside the air traffic control room in LaGuardia Airport to be engulfed by panic.
The chilling audio captured the distressed controller’s confession to another pilot as well.
An air traffic controller was heard saying he “messed up” after the horrific Air Canada crash in New York
A pilot and copilot tragically lost their lives after an Air Canada Express flight crashed into a fire truck while landing at LaGuardia.
The Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft had taken off from Montreal with around 72 passengers and 4 crew members onboard.
The plane made its way to its destination at around 11:40 p.m. local time.
Meanwhile, a fire truck on the ground was responding to an issue related to a completely different aircraft.
As per an audio clip from the air traffic control room, United Flight 2384 had reported an odor in the cabin that made flight attendants sick. And in response, the fire truck was granted permission to cross Runway 4 at Taxiway D and steer towards the United Airlines flight.
However, Air Canada’s Flight 8646 was also approaching the runway at the same time.
A fire truck was responding to an issue related to another flight when it crossed the same runway
“Truck one and company LaGuardia tower, requesting to cross 04 at Delta,” a person was heard asking in the audio.
The unidentified officer was heard giving the all-clear to the truck, saying, “Truck one and company cross 4 at Delta.”
He then gave instructions to the pilot of a Frontier Airlines flight.
“Frontier 4195, just stop there please,” the controller was heard saying before panic immediately gripped his voice.
“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop stop,” he frantically said. “Stop Truck One, stop, stop Truck One, stop.”
He then addressed the Air Canada pilot and said, “Jazz 646 I see you’ve collided with a vehicle here just hold position, I know you can’t move. The vehicles are responding to you now.”
“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop stop,” the air traffic controller was heard frantically saying
Despite signs of distress, the controller continued doing his job and asked a Delta Airlines flight to “go around” the wreckage.
“Is the runway closed?” a woman was heard asking.
“Delta 2603 go around, runway heading 2000,” the contoller said.
He was then heard communicating with the Frontier Airlines pilot and informed them that the runway would be “closed for a little while.”
ATC audio captures moment Air Canada Express flight AC8646 collided with the truck. pic.twitter.com/WsoAUT4P4j
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) March 23, 2026
“That wasn’t good to watch,” the Frontier Airlines pilot replied.
The controller then claimed he “messed up.”
“Yeah I know I was here, I tried to reach out to them I stopped and we were dealing with an emergency here earlier and I messed up,” he said.
“No man, you did the best you could,” the pilot said.
A pilot was heard consoling the distressed air traffic controller after he said he “messed up”
During a Monday morning news conference, authorities revealed that around 41 passengers and crew, in addition to two people from the fire truck, were transported to the hospital. Thirty-two of them have since been released.
Jack Cabot, a passenger on the Air Canada flight, said the aircraft was going for a “regular landing.” But they “came in pretty hard.”
“We immediately hit something, and it was just chaos in there,” he told 5 WRAL.
A passenger on the doomed flight said everybody hunkered down and began screaming when they “came in pretty hard”
“About five seconds later, we had come to a stop, but in that short period, I mean, everybody was hunkered down, and everybody was screaming pretty quickly,” he continued.
Cabot claimed that some of the passengers then began talking about jumping out through the emergency exit.
@andresaintalbin FULL ATC AUDIO LEADING TO TRAGIC EVENTS AT LGUARDIA AIRPORT – A fire truck was trying to cross runway 04 at LGA – LaGuardia Airport this evening to get to a United Airlines flt 2384 that had 2 rejected takeoffs. The United 737 Max declared an emergency on the ground and requested fire trucks due to a strange odor that was making the flight attendants sick. The fire “TRUCK 1” was cleared to cross runway 04 to respond to the United flight when it collided with the Air Canada / Jazz CRJ. Listen to the audio gives you an idea of how task saturated LaGuardia Control Tower became trying to deal with this emergency. #BREAKING #LaGuardiaAirport #NewYork #AviationNews #fyp #LAGUARDIA #airport #firetruck #breakingnews #breaking #aircraft #airplanecrash #airplanecollision #laguardiaairport #LGA #ControlTower #ATC #atctower #UNITED737 #RUNWAY4 #unitedairlines2384 #aircanada ♬ original sound – andresaintalbin
“We didn’t have any directions because the pilot’s cabin had been kind of destroyed, so somebody said, ‘Let’s get the emergency exit and get the door and let’s all jump out,’ and that’s exactly what we did,” he told the outlet.
The president of Jazz Aviation, the company that operated the Air Canada Express flight, extended his deepest condolences to the family and friends of the two deceased pilots.
The pilot’s cabin was almost entirely “destroyed,” a passenger said
“Today is an incredibly difficult day for our airline, our employees, and most importantly, the families and loved ones of those affected by the accident involving Flight 8646,” he said in a statement.
As the investigation into the crash is underway, he said they were committed to fully cooperating with authorities to “determine what happened.”
Netizens had mixed reactions to the chilling audio from the air traffic control room
