[wk_end]

"Liability" isn't really how we try to see things in aviation. While it's true that it's ultimately considered the responsibility of the truck/plane to visually confirm that crossing the runway is safe, refuse unsafe commands from ATC, and comply to the best of their ability when ATC says "stop" at the last second, we can't stop our analysis there if we want to prevent this from happening in the future, because unless things change someone will make this mistake again in the future. Telling people not to make mistakes isn't going to help at all; it's obvious, and no one wants to cause an accident. The error is just the last step in the process that led to the collision.

[rglover]

I don't think the ATC is at fault here. If they were put in a difficult situation and responsible for too much at once, I'd view that as a leadership bug, not their personal fault (or anything they should be held liable for). The weak links imo here are the firetruck driver and whoever that ATC reports to directly (i.e., there shouldn't have been an opportunity for this to happen—that's an executive failure, whether they want to take ownership or not).

[SecretDreams]

The weak link is the system in place which puts so much work on so few staff.

The fire truck received the go ahead. They weigh 3x more than a normal firetruck. They're rushing to a different emergency. The plane is moving fast as hell. They can't just react instantaneously.

The ATC worker is clearly too stretched and such an incident was an inevitability. When they're shouting stop, they are no longer directly talking to the firetruck, which obscures the situation for everyone.

It is a terrible tragedy that will only be prevented with reform in staffing and safety procedures.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

The NTSB’s role is to not to assign blame.

We aren’t in the aviation industry, and neither are we the NTSB.

Prosecutions and convictions do occur as a result of aviation incidents, pilots loose their jobs, pilots loose their licenses, ATC staff can be prohibited from ever working in the industry again.

We free to talk about all of those aspects here.