The ASDE-X system alerts air traffic controllers to potential runway collisions, but it did not activate on Sunday night, when a fire truck rushed across Runway 4 and into the path of the Air Canada Express Jet as it barreled down the runway at 100 miles per hour.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters the system “did not alert” due to vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway in close proximity. The firetruck also lacked a special transponder that would have allowed the air traffic controller to more easily track the truck on radar.

The two pilots on the Air Canada jet died in the collision, which tore out the front of the plane after it t-boned the crossing firetruck.

A flight attendant was ejected from the plane, strapped in a jump seat, and survived with broken bones. The two crew members on the firetruck were hospitalized with serious injuries. About 40 passengers were also hospitalized, but many were released on Monday.

The NTSB is investigating the events leading up to the crash, including the actions of the air traffic controllers. The tower cab on Sunday night was staffed with two air traffic controllers, but Ms. Homendy said she’s received conflicting reports as to which controller was overseeing the movements of ground vehicles near the active runways.

In the airport tower audio before the crash, a controller can be heard clearing the fire truck to cross Runway 4.

The truck was headed to a United flight near another runway that reported an odd odor on the plane and had aborted two takeoffs.

Seconds before the Air Canada Express jet touched down, a controller repeatedly told the firetruck to stop. But the truck sped across the runway.

Ms. Homendy said the NTSB has not determined if the crew in the truck heard the last-second directive to stop. Some of the transmissions were inaudible due to cross-talk.

Visibility on the ground was impacted by rain and mist.

Ms. Homendy said the NTSB has not analyzed the flight recorders to determine if the pilots saw the truck or had time to take any evasive action.

The NTSB, Ms. Homendy said, will examine the FAA’s policy allowing controllers to essentially perform double duty during slower times at the airport, namely midnight shifts.

Sunday’s accident occurred around 11:45 p.m. Both controllers in the tower were performing multiple duties, including ground control, clearance for planes to take off and local control of planes arriving at the airport.

“It is standard operating procedure that they only have two on duty, and those two perform the duties of other controllers. That is our understanding right now. However, we’re going to further dig into that as part of our investigation,” Ms. Homendy said. “Our air traffic control team has stated this is a problem. That this is a concern for them for years, that they have had this concern for quite a long time. I can understand it’s a concern, especially if there’s a heavy workload.”

Staffing shortages have plagued the nation’s air traffic control towers, but LaGuardia was adequately staffed, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday. He launched a program last year to boost air traffic control training and hiring, and has provided pay incentives for new employees and to keep those near retirement on the job longer.

Runway near-misses are becoming the norm at America’s busiest airports.

The deadly crash at LaGuardia happened just days after an Alaska Airlines passenger jet carrying 171 passengers and 6 crew members nearly collided with a FedEx Boeing 777 on the runway at Newark Liberty International Airport. Pilots of both aircraft in Newark said the crew followed instructions from air traffic controllers.

Credits: Air Canada Express

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The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, said in a statement that the type of ransomware had been identified and law enforcement was investigating.

US defense contractor RTX, formerly Raytheon, said the attack had affected automatic check-in software called Muse supplied by its subsidiary, software maker Collins Aerospace, to several airline customers.

Software compromise

In a statement on Monday, the company said it was working with four affected airports and airline customers, and was in the final stages of completing the updates necessary to restore full functionality.

An internal memo sent to Heathrow staff says that following the Friday attack, Collins rebuilt its systems and relaunched them, only to realise the hackers still had access to the system, the BBC reported.

The memo reportedly says that more than a thousand computers may have been “corrupted” and work to bring them back online is being done in person and not remotely, slowing down the process.

Airline staff have turned to manual check-in methods to keep flights operating while the Muse software is not functioning.

Heathrow said on Sunday it was working to resolve the issue and apologised to customers over flight delays.

It said the “vast majority” of flights have continued to operate and advised passengers to check the status of their flight before travelling to the airport.

About half the airlines flying from Heathrow were back online by Sunday, according to media reports. British Airways has reportedly been operating on a back-up system since Saturday.

Ongoing disruption

Airports in Brussels, Dublin and Berlin have also experienced delays, with automated check-in systems such as kiosks and bag-drop machines offline.

A spokesperson for Brussels airport said Collins Aerospace had not yet confirmed the Muse system had been secured.

A Berlin Airport spokesperson said some airlines were still boarding passengers manually and there was no indication of when the Muse outage would end.

Some 40 of 277 of the departing flights at Brussels were cancelled on Monday, with 23 of 277 incoming flights cancelled.

The attack is the latest to raise questions over the security of critical systems that are provided by suppliers, and are not under a company’s direct control.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “This system is not owned or operated by Heathrow, so while we cannot resolve the IT issue directly, we are supporting airlines and have additional colleagues in the terminals to assist passengers.”

Supply-chain hacks

Hackers frequently invade a company’s system by targeting a subcontractor, such as an outsourced IT helpdesk.

In the case of Marks & Spencer, whose online ordering systems were disabled for weeks after a cyber-attack earlier this year, hackers tricked a third-party contractor into providing access to internal systems, the company said in May.

At the time Reuters cited an unnamed source as saying that M&S’ outsourced helpdesk provider Tata Consultancy Services, or TCS, was a “means of access”.

Two other British companies hacked this year, the Co-op and Jaguar Land Rover, whose plants are currently still shut down , also use TCS as a supplier. TCS has denied its systems were breached in the M&S hack.

In 2020, US company SolarWinds said malware was inserted into its Orion security software in a Russian cyber-espionage campaign, leading to a breach of US government agencies including the Department of Justice and the Pentagon.

Credits: Europe

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