An Air Canada plane crashed into a car on landing in New York. There are fatalities

An Air Canada-branded Bombardier airplane collided with a ground services vehicle while landing in New York City. Two people died as a result - both pilots, sources told NBC News. The crash could prove to be one of the most serious runway accidents in recent memory, adding to the statistics of airplane incidents in the United States.

There were 72 passengers and four crew members on board the Air Canada Express regional jet, Reuters wrote, citing preliminary data from the carrier. The plane collided with a fire truck on landing at New York's LaGuardia airport at about 39 km/h, the agency cited data from flight tracking service Flightradar24.

The pilot and co-pilot are dead, two NBC sources claim. Two people riding in the fire truck (a police officer and sergeant) are hospitalized with fractured limbs, they are in stable condition, NBC claims. More than a dozen passengers were hurt, some also hospitalized, one of the network's sources says.

The Airport Authority of New York and New Jersey specified that a fire truck was on its way to a call at the time of the incident. The airliner that crashed was operated by Air Canada's regional partner Jazz Airlines, part of the Canadian holding company Chorus Aviation.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said LaGuardia airport will remain closed until 2 p.m. Monday North American Eastern Time (6 p.m. GMT). Flightradar24 reported that 18 flights were diverted to other airports, mostly in the New York area, or returned to their departure points, Reuters wrote.

This is the third major U.S. aviation accident in the last 15 months. In January 2025, an American Airlines jet collided with a military helicopter near Washington, DC. The crash left no survivors, becoming one of the nation's deadliest in decades. Last November, a United Parcel Service freighter crashed after takeoff in Louisville.

According to the FAA, there were 97 incidents on U.S. runways in January 2026 alone. Usually they are without serious damage, but the accident with an Air Canada airplane risks becoming the worst such case since January 2024, Bloomberg notes. Back then, a Japan Airlines passenger airliner collided with a Japanese Coast Guard plane on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. As a result of that accident, five people died and both aircraft burned.

According to FactSet, all seven experts tracking Chorus Aviation securities assigned them a "Buy" rating. The average target price of the company's shares calculated by the service at $30.57 per share implies a potential growth of 37.5%.

Wall Street sentiment on Air Canada is more subdued, but the consensus is also Buy - Overweight, "above market". The average target for Air Canada at $24.21 per share is 39.6% above the closing price of $17.34 on March 20.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor