Latest on LaGuardia Airport traffic, crash

Welcome back. I'm Errol Barnett at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. We continue to follow breaking news out of New York's LaGuardia Airport. Officials have confirmed two pilots of a plane were killed when it collided with a fire vehicle on the runway late last night. CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave is following this story. He's standing by at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport for us. Kris, good morning. What are we learning about the control tower and how this happened? Well, certainly, there are going to be a lot of questions around the workload on the controller that we here on the air traffic control audio. It appears the same controller that cleared this fire truck to cross the runway was also working an emergency across the airfield. A United flight had aborted its takeoff after a warning light came on in the flight deck. After aborting its takeoff and moving off the other runway at LaGuardia, that pilot reported that there was an odor in the cabin and that they needed emergency vehicles to respond. That pilot then came on as they were waiting for a gate, and the controller was trying to coordinate getting them to a safer location on the airfield and figure out a gate. You can hear him making calls to try to do all of that. The United captain comes on and says, we now have flight attendants reporting feeling ill. We're declaring an emergency. So all of that's going on, as well as other traffic moving around the footprint of LaGuardia. And you've got this Air Canada plane coming in to land a flight right behind it. That's set to land on runway 4. You hear the air traffic controller clear this fire truck to cross runway 4 and then, very shortly after that, ask the truck to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Unfortunately, the truck didn't stop, and the collision occurred. But the workload for that controller is one of the things the NTSB is going to want to understand, particularly in the wake of the DCA mid-air collision, where workload on the controllers was a major factor in that accident. And Kris, we were just discussing that earlier this hour. Considering that staffing at ATC towers has been a long-standing issue, I believe the FAA has reduced flight capacity at some high-traffic airports as a result, have offered bonuses to get more ATC staff in those towers. Has enough been done, in your view, to address that issue, and might this heighten the urgency? Well, so one of the challenges, particularly with the New York City airspace, is it is so complex and so complicated that-- these are senior controllers. These are folks that go through special certification to work in that airspace. You can't just surge in any controller into the New York City airspace. It can take up to a year or more to fully certify a controller to work at the three New York City area airports. So yes, staffing is a problem generally across the air traffic control landscape. It takes years to train controllers. So there is not a fast solution to that. You've seen the FAA try to supercharge, in their words, hiring of controllers, getting them into training. But it will be years before that shortage has been fully addressed.

All right, Kris Van Cleave with the latest information for us. Kris, thank you. Robert Sumwalt joins us now. He's the former chair of the NTSB and a CBS News transportation safety expert. Bob, great to see you this morning. Can you walk us through-- now that we have these early pieces of data, the ATC conversation, the traffic, the allowing of the fire vehicle to cross the runway, walk us through what the investigation will look like starting today. Well, good morning, Errol. Certainly a sad way to start out the week. The NTSB will have a lot to go on in this particular accident. They're going to have radar data to show where each airplane was at each particular point in time. They'll have air traffic control communications. They'll have a cockpit voice recorder from the pilots on board the Air Canada flight. They will conduct interviews. So they're going to have a lot of information to start with early this morning.

And if I am getting ready to board a plane, if I'm frustrated and in one of these long TSA lines and I see this news on my phone, I'd be completely unnerved. Should passengers see this as a rare accident that is highly unlikely, or is there a larger concern in the aviation industry in the US right now, as far as safety? Well, it's a great question, Errol. I think it's really the case of a rare accident, something that rarely happens and is highly visible. Unfortunately, we've lost two pilots, but I'm confident that the investigation will get to the bottom of this and find out exactly what happened here.

And just from what we know, Bob, if one individual was being tasked with managing traffic on the ground and in the air, on an overnight shift, in an airport for New York City, is that rare and unusual, or might that be just the confluence of events like a sick out or other staffing issues? Well, yeah, certainly, the NTSB is going to want to look at the staffing in the tower. Was it what it was supposed to be, as Kris Van Cleave pointed out? That air traffic controller, that one controller had a lot going on. Were there other controllers in the tower that could be assisting? So the NTSB will sort all of that out, and I think they'll do a good job, based on my experience working with them for 15 years.

That's right. All right, Bob Sumwalt, great to speak with you this Monday. Thank you. Thank you, Errol.