NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy also noted that the firetruck involved in the crash did not have a transponder

 

Officials are sharing more information about what happened in the final seconds before a deadly collision between a passenger plane and a firetruck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport over the weekend.

At a press conference on Tuesday, March 24, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Doug Brazy said the firetruck that crossed in front of the Air Canada plane on Sunday, March 22, was told to stop twice before the collision on Runway 4.

The first warning was delivered nine seconds before the crash, and the second was made about five seconds later, according to Brazy, citing summarized data from the cockpit voice recorder that was recovered from the plane after the crash.

NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said it is currently unclear if the officers inside the firetruck, who both survived and will be interviewed, heard the warnings and also noted that the firetruck involved in the crash did not have a transponder.

Emergency crews respond to an Air Canada Express plane on the tarmac after the plane collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport

Emergency crews responding to the passenger jet crash at LaGuardia Airport on Monday, March 23.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty

An analysis indicated LaGuardia’s ASDE-X system, which Homendy described as “a runway safety system that allows air traffic controllers to track surface movement of aircraft and vehicles,” “did not alert” prior to the crash.

Homendy confirmed there were two air traffic controllers working at the time of the incident. Those individuals were doing multiple jobs, which the NTSB chairwoman said is part of standard operating procedure at LaGuardia during the midnight shift.

She went on to say there is no indication that fatigue was a factor, but that they’re still in the process of verifying information.

Two pilots died in the crash, a Port Authority spokesperson previously confirmed to PEOPLE. They have been identified as captain Antoine Forest and first officer Mackenzie Gunther.

At a press conference on Monday, FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said the pilots who died were “two young men at the start of their careers,” calling their deaths “an absolute tragedy.” He and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy extended condolences to the pilots’ families.

“It is a deeply human story, where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families, and they will not,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters.

Another 39 people on the plane and two officers on the firetruck — which was responding to reports of an unknown odor in the cockpit of another plane — were transported to a hospital, although the majority have already been released.

LaGuardia previously said the crash when the Air Canada flight was landing on runway four and struck an aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle that was “responding to a separate incident.”

Kathryn Garcia, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, later said that controllers were responding to a plane that had made several takeoff attempts, The New York Times reported. The plane’s pilot called for assistance before the deadly crash.

It remains unclear what the firetruck crew did in the moments before the collision.

An investigation remains ongoing.