By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday a key runway safety system failed to activate before a March 22 fatal collision between an Air Canada Express jet and a fire truck that killed two pilots.
The NTSB also said in its preliminary report that red runway entrance lights that indicate when it is not safe to cross a runway were on until about three seconds before the time of the collision. The NTSB said the system is designed to turn the lights off about 2 to 3 seconds before the airplane reaches each intersection.
The Express CRJ-900 regional jet touched down roughly 2 seconds before the collision and was at 104 mph at the time of the crash.
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the fatal collision of the CRJ-900 jet operated by Air Canada's regional partner Jazz Aviation. The crash sent 39 of the 76 passengers and crew to hospital, including six with serious injuries.
The airport's ground surveillance system did not generate an alert warning of the proximity of vehicles to the runway and the fire truck that collided with the jet lacked a transponder that would have transmitted its location to air traffic control.
The turret operator in the truck involved in the collision recalled hearing the words "stop stop stop" (on the tower frequency) radio, but he did not know who that transmission was intended for and then heard "Truck 1 stop stop stop" and realized it was for their vehicle and subsequently noticed that they had entered the runway, the NTSB said.
The NTSB said the local controller who was handling the Air Canada plane had about 18 years of experience and the ground controller who was also the controller-in-charge had about 19 years of experience, and was responsible handling aircraft that were taxiing.
The Federal Aviation Administration has encouraged airports to equip fire trucks with transponders because it makes the vehicles' movements easier to track at busy airports.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Stephen Coates)
