Flight data recovered from the Amazon Air cargo jet that overran a runway and crashed into two vehicles at Miami International Airport shows the crew added thrust consistent with an attempted go-around in the seconds after touchdown, before the plane ran off the pavement, federal investigators said Tuesday.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator-in-charge Chihoon Shin told reporters that the Boeing 767's throttles were advanced "to values consistent with go-around thrust" after the aircraft's brakes were initially applied on landing, before being reduced to idle again roughly 11 seconds before the cockpit voice recording ended. The data also showed the plane's thrust reversers, which help slow an aircraft on landing, were never deployed — a finding Bloomberg reported suggests the crew may have briefly tried to abort the landing before the plane continued off the runway's end.
Sunday's crash killed five people and injured five more. Amazon Air Flight 7598, a 1994-built Boeing 767-33 operated by contractor 21 Air LLC and arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, overran runway 30 by roughly 1,300 feet before striking a cleaning-crew van and a passenger car and catching fire. All five fatalities were occupants of the two vehicles; three of the injured were taken to Jackson's Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.
A Scene of "Utter Devastation"
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who briefed reporters at the scene, described the wreckage in stark terms. "The Econoline van is torn apart. You can see airbags, the surrounding debris," she said, according to CBS Miami's account of the briefing. The agency has deployed 32 investigators and says it expects to remain on-site for at least a week; both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been sent to NTSB headquarters for full analysis.
Investigators said they are examining several factors beyond the crew's actions in the final seconds, including whether an Engineered Materials Arresting System — a crushable surface designed to stop overrunning aircraft — should have been installed at the end of the runway, the contractual relationship between Amazon and 21 Air, and the aging aircraft's maintenance and ownership history. Thunderstorms and gusty winds were reported in the area at the time, though the NTSB says it is too early to say whether weather was a factor.
The crash forced Miami International to close all four of its runways at the height of the disruption; two have since reopened and the citywide ground stop has been lifted. A preliminary NTSB report is typically issued within 30 days of an accident, though a full determination of probable cause can take a year or more.
