Clocked Out on a Night of Tragedy: FAA Moves to Fire LaGuardia Controllers in Timecard Fraud Sweep

Two air traffic controllers at LaGuardia Airport clocked out before their shifts ended on the night of a deadly Air Canada crash, and both are now among a dozen controllers the Federal Aviation Administration has moved to fire as part of a widening inquiry into timecard fraud, according to people familiar with the matter.

The early departures occurred during one of the tower's busiest windows, when controllers thread the final evening banks of arrivals and departures through some of the most congested airspace in the country. The people familiar with the inquiry said the allegations center on falsified time and attendance records — employees drawing pay for hours they did not work — rather than on any operational error tied to the crash. They did not say whether staffing inside the tower that night fell below the FAA's required minimums.

The people said the agency has issued or is preparing proposed removal notices, the formal first step in firing a federal employee. Controllers who receive them can respond in writing, challenge the evidence and, if the agency finalizes a termination, appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Most are expected to have representation from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that bargains for the FAA's controller workforce.

The investigation lands at a fragile moment for the nation's air traffic system. The FAA has spent years trying to close a shortfall of roughly 3,000 certified controllers, a gap that has pushed many towers and radar facilities to rely on six-day workweeks and mandatory overtime. LaGuardia, wedged between the East River and the dense neighborhoods of Queens, handles some of the heaviest traffic volumes in the system despite its compact footprint.

Timecard fraud has dogged federal aviation facilities before. Auditors and internal investigators have flagged cases in which controllers left early, swapped shifts off the books or logged hours they never worked. Such cases carry outsized consequences inside the agency because controllers hold safety-sensitive positions, and a documented lie on a time record can end a career even when no flight was ever put at risk.

What sets the LaGuardia cases apart, the people said, is the timing of two of the departures. On the night the Air Canada flight went down, emergency crews mobilized and the region's aviation network absorbed a deadly shock. The revelation that two controllers walked out early that same evening has sharpened questions about supervision and culture inside the tower, even as investigators treat the attendance fraud and the cause of the crash as separate matters.

Aviation safety experts note that a tower running short-handed does not automatically operate unsafely: supervisors can combine positions, meter the flow of arrivals and departures, or hold traffic on the ground to match the staff on hand. But the margin for error thins quickly at an airport like LaGuardia, where controllers routinely sequence scores of flights an hour alongside traffic bound for Kennedy and Newark.

The FAA has not publicly identified the controllers, detailed the specific allegations or said when the inquiry began. Proposed removals can take months to resolve, and some federal employees negotiate resignations or reduced penalties before cases reach a final decision. For a workforce already strained by chronic understaffing — and for a flying public rattled by a deadly crash — the prospect of a dozen firings at a single tower raises the stakes for a system with little slack to spare.