Two pilots lost their lives after an Air Canada passenger plane collided with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday, March 22.
Photos from the scene showed the plane tilting backwards, with its cockpit almost seared off. The fire truck, for its part, was surrounded by debris, wreckage, and warped metal.
Authorities said 41 people were taken to the hospital, with 31 soon discharged, while others suffered serious injuries.
As the investigation into the tragedy gets underway, retired aviation investigator Jeff Guzzetti has shared his theory about what may have caused it.
He currently serves as president of Guzzetti Aviation Risk Discovery, LLC, a consultancy he founded in 2019 to help flight operators implement essential safety measures.
While the government investigative agency has refrained from providing a cause for the LaGuardia collision at this point, Guzzetti has suggested it appears to have been caused by a shortage of air traffic controllers.
“Over 3,000 controller positions need to be fulfilled in the United States, and that may be a factor here,” the expert said as he hypothesized that a single individual may have been handling both air and ground traffic, per The New York Times.