Investigators at the scene of the crash on Monday.
The runway where an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck remains closed, limiting capacity at one of the busiest airports in the New York City region.
More delays were expected at LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday after a fatal collision between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck forced the closure of a runway that officials say may not reopen for days.
Investigators are in the early stages of determining what went wrong late Sunday night, as they begin examining whether air traffic controllers were distracted by a problem with another plane at the time of the collision.
The plane involved in the accident, Air Canada Express Flight 8646, had departed from Montreal and landed at around 11:37 p.m. carrying an estimated 72 passengers and four crew members, according to its operator, Jazz Aviation LP. Two pilots were killed and dozens of people were injured, including passengers, a flight attendant who suffered a fractured leg after she was ejected from the plane and the two firefighters in the truck.
LaGuardia Airport reopened on Monday afternoon, but the Federal Aviation Administration said that fewer planes would be arriving because the runway where the collision occurred was still closed for crews to clear debris and investigators to document the scene. Departures were delayed by nearly three hours on average.
Federal and local officials provided few details on what caused the collision at a news conference on Monday night. Jennifer Homendy, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that a full investigative team would arrive at the site by early Tuesday morning.
Ms. Homendy said some of the two dozen specialists were held up by long security lines at airports, slowing the early stages of the investigation. The Transportation Security Administration has faced a staffing shortage during the partial government shutdown.
Air traffic control audio reviewed by The New York Times suggested that controllers were focused on another emergency involving a United Airlines flight moments before the Air Canada jet struck the fire truck.
The United jet had aborted a takeoff after pilots reported a foul odor in the cabin, prompting controllers to coordinate its return to a new gate and prepare emergency responders, according to Kathryn Garcia, the head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the airport’s operator.
Seconds before the crash, one controller appeared to clear a Port Authority fire truck to cross the runway where the Air Canada plane had just landed before urgently calling for it to stop, according to the air traffic control audio.
After the crash, a controller can be heard telling another pilot, “I messed up.” It was not immediately clear what he was referring to.
Here’s what else to know:
Staffing: The F.A.A. said that staffing levels in the LaGuardia tower would be part of the investigation. Two controllers had been working the midnight shift in the control room at the time of the accident, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Pilots: The two pilots have not been publicly identified. Julie Bolcer, the New York City chief medical examiner, determined that they had died from blunt force injuries. Bryan Bedford, the F.A.A. administrator, described them as “two young men at the start of their career.”
Firefighters: The two firefighters on the truck were identified by officials as Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez. The firefighting unit at LaGuardia Airport is a specialized division of the Port Authority Police Department known as the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting, or ARFF, unit. Officer Baez was released from the hospital on Monday night, while Sergeant Orsillo remained hospitalized, according to the Port Authority.
Flight disruptions: LaGuardia Airport advised passengers to expect lingering cancellations and delays after it reopened on Monday afternoon. Passengers are entitled to a refund for canceled flights. Domestic flights delayed by more than three hours are also eligible for a refund if the passenger chooses not to travel.
Delays were expected to continue for days at LaGuardia Airport as the runway where the Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck on Sunday night remained closed, officials said on Monday.
Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a Monday evening news conference that there was a significant amount of debris on the runway that would need to be examined and documented, along with other evidence from the crash site.
“It’s going to take some time,” Ms. Homendy said.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said in an email on Monday that the arrival rate at LaGuardia had been reduced because the runway was unavailable. Departures to the airport were delayed by just under three hours on average, according to the agency’s website. A federal notice said that the runway could reopen on Friday.
LaGuardia had been closed until 2 p.m. on Monday. After reopening, the airport said in a statement on social media that travelers should continue to expect delays and cancellations, and advised passengers to check with their airlines for the latest information about their flights.
The delays came as New York City airports already under strain over the weekend because of a national shortage of Transportation Security Administration agents caused by the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Long security lines disrupted operations at LaGuardia, where wait times exceeded three hours.
One of the firefighters injured in the accident at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday was released late Monday from the hospital, and another remained hospitalized.
Both were hospitalized at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, said Bobby Egbert, a spokesman for the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents the officers. Officer Adrian Baez was released on Monday while Sgt. Michael Orsillo remains hospitalized, he said. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey runs LaGuardia, one of the region’s three main airports.
The firefighting unit at LaGuardia Airport is a specialized division of the Port Authority Police Department known as the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting, or ARFF, unit. Its members are Port Authority police officers who receive specialized aircraft rescue and firefighting training and are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, Mr. Egbert said.
Mr. Egbert, who worked on the fire rescue unit before he retired, called it “the nation’s largest and busiest” airport firefighting department aside from the U.S. military. “It is rigorous training, and they are real professionals,” he said. “It is a very active unit.”
The largest rigs are bigger than traditional fire trucks, weighing about 90,000 pounds. They also have specialized firefighting foam and dry chemical agents to extinguish flammable liquid fuel and gas fires along with electrical fires, he said.
“These are big trucks — the tires are taller than most people,” Mr. Egbert said. “They are heavy machines with all types of firefighting gear for aircraft emergencies. But they’re no match for a landing aircraft.”
The lead truck, or Truck 1, was the one involved in the collision on Sunday night.
“The plane appeared to hit the truck broadside, and we believe that the officers would not have survived if the plane hit the cab directly,” Mr. Egbert said.
Because several other responding units followed the lead truck, he said, “An unfortunate situation turned out to be fortunate for the Air Canada passengers because all the ARFF units were immediately on scene and went right into rescue mode.”
As Transportation Security Administration staffing shortages snarled airport operations across the country on Monday, specialists from the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency responsible for aviation safety, were among those caught in the long lines for security, the agency’s chairwoman said at a news conference.
Jennifer Homendy, the N.T.S.B. chair, said long airport security lines caused by the Department of Homeland Security shutdown were one of several issues that delayed the start of her investigation at LaGuardia Airport.
Ms. Homendy’s agency responded on Monday after an Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck shortly after it landed at LaGuardia late Sunday night. Other factors that delayed her team included LaGuardia’s closure until 2 p.m. because of the crash and a ground stop at Newark Liberty International Airport.
“It’s been a really big challenge to get the entire team here, and they’re still arriving as I speak,” Ms. Homendy said.
One of the agency’s air traffic control specialists was caught in a three-hour line for security at a Houston airport — Ms. Homendy did not specify which one — until the NTSB called “to beg to see if we can get her through, so we can get her here,” Ms. Homendy said.
Investigators were continuing to arrive at LaGuardia by plane, train and automobile on Monday, Ms. Homendy added. She drove there with a team from Washington, D.C.
Team members began arriving at around 3 a.m. on Monday and would continue arriving until about 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, she said. The team had not yet had a full day of investigation and was therefore unable to provide much additional detail on the crash that killed two Air Canada pilots.
“What I’m going to tell you is we are world renowned investigators,” Ms. Homendy said. “But we deal in facts, and if we are not able to verify those yet — and we haven’t been able to — we can’t provide those.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether a problem with a United Airlines flight distracted an air traffic controller in the LaGuardia Airport tower at a critical juncture, said a person briefed on the matter, and whether it paved the way for a runway accident that killed two pilots.
At 11:37 p.m. on Sunday, when the accident occurred, two controllers were working in the LaGuardia tower, according to this person and a second person who was briefed on the matter, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
One controller was talking to a fire truck that was en route to assist a United Airlines jet, which had reported a foul odor that was sickening flight attendants, according to audio recordings of the air traffic controller communications. As the controller was clearing the fire truck to cross a major runway, an Air Canada jet was landing on the same runway. It crashed headlong into the fire truck, killing the jet’s two pilots and injuring a number of passengers.
At the time of the accident, both controllers were working two positions at the same time, these people said, reflecting the thin staffing that is typical at that time of night because of the relatively light traffic at the airport.
Those controllers were in a “mid,” or midnight, shift configuration, said one of the people briefed on the matter. At LaGuardia, that shift typically stretches from about 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., the National Transportation Safety Bureau chair, Jennifer Homendy, said at a news conference Monday evening. She added that it wasn’t clear how long those controllers had been on shift at the time of the accident.
An additional two controllers were elsewhere in the building, but were not in the “cab,” or control room of the tower, at the time of the accident, said the two people who were briefed on the matter.
The F.A.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting.
For some Canadians, the collision between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck that killed the plane’s two pilots at LaGuardia Airport may become yet another reason to avoid traveling to the United States.
News coverage in Canada Monday about the fate of the short flight from Montreal to New York concentrated on the struggles and shortcomings of the American air traffic control system, prompting Steven MacKinnon, the minister for Transport Canada, the country’s airline regulator, to reassure Canadians about air safety.
“We will be continuing to work together to get to the bottom to find the answers that Canadians are going to be looking for,” he told the House of Commons. Earlier in an interview with the French service of the CBC, Mr. MacKinnon said that Canada’s examination includes “the labor shortage among air traffic controllers.”
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has sent a team of investigators to New York to assist their American counterparts. The Canadian agency is involved not just because the flight involved Air Canada and Jazz Aviation, the Canada-based carrier that operates Air Canada Express flights. The jetliner was also designed and built in Canada by Bombardier, which is based in Montreal. (Bombardier sold its regional airliner business to Mitsubishi of Japan, which shut down production of new aircraft, but continues to offer parts and other services for the aircraft that remain in operation.)
In a statement the Canadian safety board deferred all comment on the investigation to its American counterpart.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s return to office and the start of his trade attacks on Canada and his calls for its annexation by the United States, many Canadians have stopped traveling to their nearest neighbor.
Statistics Canada, the census agency, reported on Monday that travel between the two countries fell by 22 percent in January over the same month a year earlier, the 13th consecutive month of decline.
The change in travel patterns began as a boycott and then was further fueled by fears among Canadians about being caught up in Mr. Trump’s immigration roundups.
Monday presented Canadian travelers with a sharp contrast to their own air traffic control system.
A private, not for profit company largely funded by fees charged to airlines and other aircraft operators took over Canada’s system nearly 30 years ago. The arrangement means that the government no longer contributes to the cost of the system. It has also avoided the staffing shortages common in the United States while modernizing the technology it uses to guide flying.
On Monday at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport, there was little to no disruption or any obvious effects of the collision in New York.
Among the few people affected was Dr. Erik Geibig, 55, a physician from Tennessee who was visiting his son who is studying in Montreal. Flight delays meant that he was boarding an airport hotel shuttle rather than returning home.
“Mondays are normally quiet,” Edna Akanwoke, 34, an Air Canada employee who generally works on the departures counters for U.S. bound flights. “Today is especially quiet.”
Nasuna Stuart-Ulin contributed reporting from Montreal.
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