By Rich McKay, David Shepardson and Andy Sullivan
ATLANTA/WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) – Two pilots died in a runway accident that shut New York’s LaGuardia Airport and President Donald Trump deployed armed immigration agents to help with hours-long lines, adding further strain to a U.S. air-travel system already hobbled by personnel shortages and rising fuel costs.
The crash between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia injured dozens of passengers and led to hundreds of flight cancellations at the start of the working week, the latest disruption for airports and carriers that have been knocked off-kilter by a weeks-long budget standoff in Congress.
Travelers have endured hours-long waits at security screening checkpoints in recent days as absentee rates have spiked among Transportation Security Administration employees who have gone without pay for more than a month.
“If you work, you should get your money. Why should that be a problem?” said traveler Edwin Blain, 60, who showed up four hours early to avoid missing his flight at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the nation’s busiest, where 42% of TSA agents were absent on Sunday.
ICE DEPLOYED TO AIRPORTS
On Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing flak jackets and pistols stood guard in airports in Atlanta, New York and New Jersey, according to Reuters witnesses. They were not wearing the masks that have become a divisive symbol of Trump’s immigration crackdown and a subject of negotiations in Congress.
White House immigration czar Tom Homan said agents had been deployed to 14 airports, in cities including New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Houston.
Authorities said the agents would provide crowd control, but Trump said they could also make arrests – raising concerns that the chaotic raids that have played out on the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere might come to the nation’s airports as well.
“They’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory,” Trump told reporters. “But that’s not why they’re there. They’re really there to help.”
In Washington, there was little sign that the standoff between Trump’s Republicans and opposition Democrats would end soon. Democrats have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without new curbs on immigration agents, who have killed U.S. citizens and sparked public outrage during their crackdown.
Though the White House has engaged in talks, Trump said on Monday he would not sign off on any compromise until Congress first passed a series of voting restrictions that Democrats have rejected, adding another potential roadblock to a deal.
Airlines are also facing rising fuel costs, which have spiked since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than three weeks ago. United Airlines said on Friday it would cut flights through the busy summer travel season, citing elevated oil prices.
LAGUARDIA COLLISION KILLS TWO, SEVERAL HOSPITALIZED
In New York, the pilot and first officer of an Air Canada Express jet were killed when the plane collided with a fire truck while it was landing, while another nine people were hospitalized with serious injuries. The CRJ-900 plane, operated by regional partner Jazz Aviation, had been carrying 72 passengers and four crew members. Some 572 flights were canceled, more than 50% of LaGuardia’s daily total.
A separate 35-minute ground stop at nearby Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday morning added to delays after air traffic controllers evacuated their tower because of a burning smell from an elevator, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
U.S. aviation has faced a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, but it was not immediately clear what led to the crash. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other officials were traveling to New York to investigate. Air-crash investigations typically find that accidents result from multiple contributing factors, rather than a single cause.
Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the fire truck was responding to a separate aircraft that had reported an “issue with odor.”
According to air traffic control audio, a controller can be heard telling the craft that a fire truck was en route and clearing a truck to cross a runway. Moments later, the controller can be heard saying: “Stop, stop, stop, truck 1 stop, truck 1, stop.”
On Monday morning, the Air Canada jet could be seen on the runway, surrounded by emergency vehicles, its crushed cockpit pointing skyward. By Monday afternoon, LaGuardia had reopened one of its runways.
(Reporting by Shannon Stapleton in New York, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson in Atlanta, David Shepardson in Washington and Allison Lampert in Montreal, additional reporting by and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gaffen and Bill Berkrot)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.