Runway Crash

Two pilots were killed and 41 people injured late Sunday in LaGuardia Airport’s first fatal plane crash since 1992.

An Air Canada Express jet landing from Montreal and carrying 72 passengers and four crew struck a Port Authority fire truck crossing the runway just before midnight. Air traffic control cleared the truck to cross in order to respond to a report of an odor on a nearby plane. Recordings reveal the controller realizing the mistake and shouting for the truck to stop seconds before the crash.

A flight attendant was ejected over 300 feet—still strapped to her jump seat, which is specifically designed to withstand crashes—and survived, suffering only a fractured leg. 

LaGuardia closed for 14 hours, cancelling over 600 flights. The NTSB has recovered both black boxes and launched a full investigation.

(We’re covering this story at a 7th-grade reading level with biblical reflection and action steps in Decaf: The Pour Over for Families. Sign up free to get it in your inbox tomorrow!)

PRAY WITH US
Lord of Highest Heaven, today we are brought down low and shaken. Hold us fast, Searching, Knowing, Present One. Hold fast the families mourning those suddenly lost. Hold fast the injured, brought low and broken, who face an enduring trial. Hold fast the anxious who fear the journey over the jet bridge and into a cloudy expanse of helpless dependence.

We are finite and frail and vulnerable, reliant on Your understanding for our very life and breath. Teach us the wholehearted trust of a little child with a good parent, so that we walk by faith, overflowing with the peace of one who is fully known, seen, and cared for by the Lord of Highest Heaven. Amen.

(Listen to the full prayer here.)