Investigators in the U.S. and Canada have cautioned that it is too early to determine a cause and that several safeguards would have had to fail for a disaster of this magnitude to occur.

In aviation safety, this is known as the Swiss Cheese Model, which compares the holes in stacked slices of cheese to weaknesses in different layers of safety defences. The holes rarely all line up. But when they do, an error can pass through.

One of the errors now drawing concern from Canadian aviation safety experts is runway incursions, like the one leading up to the collision at LaGuardia.

In 2010, the year the TSB added runway incursions to its watchlist, Nav Canada recorded 334 of them. In its 2025 financial year, Nav Canada recorded 612 runway incursions at Canadian airports between Sept. 1 and Aug. 31, according to data provided to CBC News.