The shocking collision of an Air Canada airplane with an emergency vehicle at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night has more than its share of horrifying videos, photos and statements from those aboard the Bombardier CRJ-90. But before public attention wanders off, dismissing this event as an isolated nightmare, I’m asking you to see it as the bad news/good news story that is commercial aviation in the 21st Century.

First the bad news. This may surprise you.

Forget the Hollywood movies that show airliners spiraling out of control or flying into a mountain. A sizeable number of airplane crashes happen on the ground, at the airport, in circumstances like what just happened in New York. And it would appear that solutions intended to remedy the complex problem of keeping airplanes and other vehicles safely separated at airports, is not working too well.

It is not known why the air traffic controller cleared the fire truck to cross Runway 4 just as the CRJ operating as Air Canada flight 8646 from Montreal was landing on it, or why the two firefighters in the truck failed to heed the controller’s repeated, albeit last minute calls to stop.

Did the firefighters double check the intersection for themselves before proceeding through it? Would the geometry of the taxiway runway intersection create visual obstructions?  These questions and more will be asked by the National Transportation Safety Board investigators along with when or whether the pilots were aware of the truck before it crossed their path.

At a news conference Tuesday, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy expressed dismay that a runway safety system in use at LaGuardia since 2011 did not alert controllers of the possible collision. Homendy read the explanation provided to her by the Federal Aviation Administration twice. This seemed designed to stress that the system, known as ASDE-X, failed in the very circumstance when it was needed most, where vehicles are merging near the runway.

Here is what the FAA reported to the NTSB, according to Homendy.

“ASDE-X did not generate an alert due to close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in an inability to create a track of high confidence,” she read. (emphasis mine)

Problems with ASDE-X were reported by aviation journalist Alan Levin four years ago after a Delta Air Lines jet landing at Hartford Bradley Airport nearly hit a construction vehicle on the runway.

Last October, two Delta planes collided on the taxiway at LaGuardia with just one person injured. And at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, in January 2023, a Delta plane came to an abrupt stop to avoid hitting an American Airlines jet taking off for London.

The near collision that made an impression on me is the one on February 10, 2023. An empty American Airlines jet was being towed at Los Angeles International Airport when it hit a bus carrying travelers to their airplane. You can see it in the photo below, lodged under the nose of the airliner.  Five people were injured.

I remember it so well because one month later, I was on the same kind of transport bus with my fellow travelers at LAX headed for a flight east. The driver had music playing loudly as he chatted amiably with his passengers. Down the road we went, at what felt much faster than the 10 or 20 miles per hour speed limit. I’m no baby, but frankly I was scared. The statistics show I should have been.

Protocols for operating motorized vehicles near airplanes are comprehensive and well defined. But considering how many entities operate vehicles on the airside of an airport, I suspect complacency overrides rule adherence from time to time.

People make mistakes. Air accident investigations help determine what reinforcement measures will prevent those mistakes from becoming disasters.

With this in mind, it is worth noting the good news.

Prior investigations and the safety recommendations they have prompted, contributed to the survival of Solange Tremblay, a flight attendant on Air Canada flight 8646.  She was seated in the aft-facing jump seat just behind the cockpit where both pilots were killed. But changes made to airplane seats years ago have led to modern seats that withstand greater stress and deceleration which makes survival more likely for those seated in them.

After the CRJ regional jet collided with the fire truck, Tremblay, still strapped into her seat, was ejected from the plane and sent sailing down the runway. Even so, she was not seriously injured. Tremblay’s daughter, Sarah Lépine, said that it was a miracle that her mother had only broken her leg.

But credit is also due to the investigators who recommended, the engineers who designed and the manufacturers responsible for the robust seat safety systems installed on today’s airliners.