The fire truck was flipped and moved to the side of the runway, this was not 24mph. 24mph is the final groundspeed recorded after the aircraft skidded off of the runway.

Per the ADSBx track the plane was at 101kts (115 mph / 185kph) just before crossing taxiway D, which would be where it hit the firetruck. It still had enough energy afterwards to reach taxiway E, 600ft away.

> That's a huge amount of damage even at 24mph.

The speed was much higher per sibling comment, but also remember that kinetic energy also involves mass (planes are heavy) and the square of the velocity.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

The latter is why (e.g.) going 100 units/hour has twice the KE of going 70 units/hour in a car.

It looks like that is based on the last recorded speed from flightradar24[1] which was 21kts(24mph). The previous data points were 11kts, and 58 kts(the last point before the track deviates off the runway). I do think it is likely that the collision occurred at a speed faster than 24mph.

edit: Looking into this a bit more it looks like the plane came to a stop around crossing E while the emergency vehicle was crossing at D(based on ATC recordings). Using the following map as reference[2], the 58kts point was around E, while the previous recorded point which was just before D was 114kts.

[1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ac8646#3ede6c39

[2] https://www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/LGA/APD/AIRPOR...

Very unlikely it was 24mph…The entire cockpit is gone.

(Though some of the major damage may have happened while deplaning the passengers)

Speed doesn't cause damage. Momentum causes damage. We understand speed, we do not understand momentum. It makes sense given our evolution.

People into boats need to understand this. Even a boat that travels no more than 4mph can crush you easily. This is why you never get on to moving boat from the front. Many people have made a mistake because speed is not high.