Emergency vehicles at the New York City area’s three major airports will be outfitted with new tracking devices after the NTSB highlighted a missing transponder aboard a fire truck as a contributor to last month’s deadly LaGuardia Airport plane crash.
James Allen, a spokesman for Port Authority, announced Tuesday that the agency will be “expanding” the use of transponder technology across LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports in line with the Federal Aviation Administration’s recommendation.
The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report released last week on the harrowing March 22 crash singled out the fire truck’s lack of a transponder but did not say if including the device could’ve prevented the collision.
Without the device, LaGuardia’s automatic warning system could not “correlate the track” of the descending Air Canada Express with the fire truck’s path, the report said.
The plane wound up barreling into the fire truck while it was crossing the runway in a fiery collision that killed the two pilots in the cockpit and injured 39 others on board. The two firefighters inside the fire truck were also injured, but ultimately survived and have been placed on leave.
Allen said that Port Authority is making “targeted investments in safety technology,” including installing the transponders that cost $10,000 each.
“We will continue to work closely with the NTSB as its investigation proceeds and remain focused on working with the FAA to strengthen safety across our airfield operations,” he said.
The FAA has encouraged airports to install transponders in their emergency and rescue vehicles without setting a firm requirement for the last 15 years.
It upped the ante by including the recommendation in its May 2025 guidelines, then rolled out a pilot program at Newark Liberty Airport in December 2025.
The Port Authority fire truck was responding to a separate emergency at LaGuardia around midnight when it was given the go-ahead to cross Runway 4 — right as the Air Canada Express flight was cleared for landing.
One of the two air-traffic controllers manning the tower frantically ordered the truck to “stop” in the seconds leading up to the collision, according to audio released after the crash.
At a press conference two days after the crash, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters that the fire truck and any other rescue vehicle should have transponders.
“Air-traffic controllers should know what’s in, you know before them. Whether it’s on airport surface or in the airspace. They should have that information to ensure safety,” she said.
The crash is still under investigation.
