* Air Canada Express jet collision with truck kills two

pilots

* US transportation secretary said LaGuardia Airport well

staffed

* US safety experts said investigation likely to look at

controller's work and sleep schedules

(Adds comments from NTSB head in paragraph 5, runway incursion

details in paragraphs 8, transportation secretary comments in

final paragraphs)

By David Shepardson, Allison Lampert and Dan Catchpole

NEW YORK/MONTREAL, March 23 (Reuters) - Investigators

probing the deadly collision of an Air Canada Express

jet with a fire truck at New York's LaGuardia airport said on

Monday they wanted to interview an air traffic controller who

was juggling another emergency in the run-up to the crash.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy

told reporters at LaGuardia that the controller would be one

part of the investigation by the independent federal agency,

which would "rule nothing out."

The accident while landing, which killed both pilots and

seriously injured another nine people, has revived concerns over

air traffic control staffing shortages at major U.S. airports

and the need for more funding to modernize safety systems.

Homendy said the collision shortly before midnight on Sunday

happened during an overnight shift for the controller, who would

typically be removed from duty after such an accident.

"It's pretty traumatic for that air traffic controller as

well," she said. "We'll want to interview that air traffic

controller as well as others that were in the tower or maybe not

even in the tower."

U.S. air safety experts said communications between the

plane that was landing, the controller and the trucks would be

key areas of the investigation.

There were 80 runway incursions by vehicles or pedestrians

during the quarter ended December 31, up from 54 in the same

period a year earlier, Federal Aviation Administration data

shows.

The NTSB, which has sounded the alarm about close calls and

runway incursions for years, last month found the deadly January

2025 mid-air collision of an American Airlines regional jet and

an Army helicopter was caused in part because the high workload

"degraded controller performance and situation awareness".

Air crashes typically are caused by multiple factors and the

NTSB said it had recovered the Air Canada Express jet's cockpit

voice recorder and flight data recorder for analysis.

PRIOR EMERGENCY

Air traffic controllers make the decisions about when planes

can land and take off, and when ground vehicles can enter

runways. The controller who made the call for Air Canada ( ACDVF ) flight

8646 to land had been trying to find a gate for a United

Airlines flight that complained of a bad odor, according

to a recording available on liveatc.net.

The United pilots decided not to fly and declared an

emergency over the odor that had sickened flight attendants.

Fire trucks that had appeared to have been cleared by the

same controller to cross Runway 4 at the airport were headed to

the United flight as the Air Canada Express CRJ-900 jet operated

by regional partner Jazz Aviation landed with 72 passengers and

four crew.

"Stop, truck one, stop," the controller said, shortly after

approving passage across the runway. The arriving plane then hit

the fire truck.

According to separate audio posted by liveatc.net, an

unidentified controller who appears to be the one involved in

the crash, told another pilot after the collision that he had

been dealing with an emergency earlier.

"I messed up," he said in a shaken voice.

The pilot of the other plane, which had seen the

crash, responded "Nah man, you did the best you could." The

pilot had said the earlier incident "wasn't good to watch."

STAFFING LEVELS

Air traffic controllers routinely handle multiple flights,

and four commercial pilots told Reuters it was not uncommon to

have one controller covering both the ground and tower, two

distinct air traffic control roles, at LaGuardia and other major

metropolitan airports.

"The really more fundamental question is 'What was the work

schedule and sleep schedule of that controller and is fatigue an

issue?'" said U.S. aviation safety expert and pilot John Cox.

In the hour before the Air Canada Express crash, 51 flights

landed or left at LaGuardia - more than twice as many as the 23

flights scheduled during the hour of the crash, according to

flight records from Flightradar24 - though the reason for the

jump was unclear.

Homendy said it was too soon to discuss controller staffing,

while U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at

LaGuardia on Monday that the airport was well-staffed with 33

air traffic controllers at a facility that has a target of 37.

Reports that the controller was working alone on Sunday

night were inaccurate, Duffy added.

The transportation secretary reiterated his earlier calls

for Congress to provide $19 billion of additional funding to

finish an air traffic control modernization program that has

received $12.5 billion.

"I'm not saying that this crash would have been prevented if

we had all the equipment deployed, but it's important if we care

about air travel safety, we care about having a brand new air

traffic control system, the best in the world with the best

equipment, virtually all of it developed here in America," Duffy

said.