Federal investigators probe Amazon cargo jet’s fiery runway crash that killed 5 in Miami

Fed­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tors ex­am­in­ing why an Ama­zon car­go jet bar­reled off a run­way at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port and in­to ve­hi­cles, killing at least five peo­ple, are like­ly to fo­cus on a cru­cial mo­ment in the land­ing: whether the plane touched down too late to stop safe­ly.

Video of Sun­day’s land­ing ap­pears to show the Boe­ing 767 re­main­ing air­borne well down the run­way be­fore touch­ing down. Avi­a­tion ex­perts said in­ves­ti­ga­tors will seek to de­ter­mine ex­act­ly where the plane land­ed and, if it was be­yond the nor­mal touch­down zone, why the pi­lots did not aban­don the land­ing and cir­cle back for an­oth­er at­tempt.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors will al­so ex­am­ine the plane’s speed and brak­ing, weath­er and wind con­di­tions, the air­craft’s me­chan­i­cal con­di­tion and oth­er fac­tors that could have con­tributed to the dead­ly over­run. The Na­tion­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board has sent a team led by Chair­woman Jen­nifer Home­ndy to Mi­a­mi, where she is ex­pect­ed to give the agency’s first brief­ing on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion Mon­day.

The air­craft over­ran the run­way around 2 p.m. Sun­day af­ter ar­riv­ing from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co, and plowed across a road used by ware­house work­ers and oth­er busi­ness­es that sur­round the air­port. Five peo­ple died, three were crit­i­cal­ly in­jured and two oth­ers were hos­pi­tal­ized with less se­vere in­juries, of­fi­cials said.

The crash, which sent thick black smoke bil­low­ing in­to the sky, trapped the pi­lot and copi­lot in the cock­pit and some oc­cu­pants in cars, said Mi­a­mi-Dade Fire Res­cue Chief Ray Jadal­lah. The agency said crews al­so had to ex­tri­cate a per­son who was trapped un­der a ve­hi­cle. It wasn’t im­me­di­ate­ly clear if the pi­lots were among those killed.

The typ­i­cal land­ing zone for a plane is with­in the first 3,000 feet (914 me­ters) of a run­way, ex­perts said. If the car­go jet was be­yond that area, it should have abort­ed the land­ing and gone around for an­oth­er try, avi­a­tion safe­ty ex­pert Steve Ar­royo said.

Mary Schi­a­vo, who is a pi­lot and for­mer In­spec­tor Gen­er­al of the Trans­porta­tion De­part­ment, said video post­ed on­line shows the Ama­zon plane float­ing above the run­way for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od with­out flar­ing the nose up­ward to force the main land­ing gear on­to the ground.

It wasn’t rain­ing at the time, but dark storm clouds loomed and strong winds were re­port­ed. Schi­a­vo said that if the plane had a tail wind, that could have con­tributed to it float­ing fur­ther down the run­way.

“A tail wind would cer­tain­ly add to your trou­bles if you’ve al­ready giv­en up a good chunk of the run­way by not touch­ing down and land­ing right away,” Schi­a­vo said.

The Mi­a­mi air­port is not equipped with ar­rest­ing sys­tems that the FAA says have been in­stalled at more than 120 air­ports na­tion­wide to safe­ly stop planes that do go past the end of a run­way. Those beds of light­weight, crush­able ma­te­r­i­al at the end of a run­way have been cred­it­ed by the FAA with help­ing save at least 497 lives aboard planes that over­ran run­ways.

Mi­a­mi’s air­port ap­pears to be in com­pli­ance and wasn’t re­quired to have an ar­rest­ing sys­tem be­cause it has a 1,000-foot safe­ty buffer at the end of its run­ways, said Mike O’Don­nell, the FAA’s for­mer di­rec­tor of air­port safe­ty and ac­ci­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The re­quire­ment was prompt­ed by Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 1420 over­run­ning a run­way at Lit­tle Rock Na­tion­al Air­port in Arkansas in 1999, killing nine.

The Prime Air plane came to rest be­side a road­way near two semi­trucks, im­ages showed. The air­craft ap­peared to be rest­ing on its bel­ly and was large­ly in­tact de­spite the fire.

The flight had been op­er­at­ed by 21 Air, a car­go car­ri­er based in North Car­oli­na. The 32-year-old Boe­ing 767 was orig­i­nal­ly built to car­ry pas­sen­gers and flew for sev­er­al air­lines for more than two decades be­fore be­ing con­vert­ed to a car­go plane in 2015, ac­cord­ing to flight-track­ing site Fligh­tradar24.

Schi­a­vo said the NTSB will al­so close­ly ex­am­ine the main­te­nance his­to­ry of this plane — par­tic­u­lar­ly since it has a his­to­ry of for­eign own­er­ship, in­clud­ing by a Russ­ian com­pa­ny.

The crash halt­ed flights at the busy trav­el hub for much of the af­ter­noon.

More than 160 flights were can­celed and near­ly 325 de­layed by late Sun­day, ac­cord­ing to FlightAware, a web­site that tracks flight dis­rup­tions. Of­fi­cials from Or­lan­do In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, more than 200 miles (320 km) north of Mi­a­mi, said some flights were di­vert­ed there.

Ama­zon said in a state­ment that it would co­op­er­ate with any in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“We’re heart­bro­ken to learn that five peo­ple lost their lives in to­day’s in­ci­dent at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port,” the com­pa­ny said. “Our deep­est sym­pa­thies go out to the fam­i­lies, loved ones, and all those af­fect­ed by this dev­as­tat­ing loss.”

Last year, a UPS plane crashed af­ter los­ing its en­gine while ac­cel­er­at­ing down the run­way at Louisville’s Muham­mad Ali In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. The crash killed all three pi­lots and 12 peo­ple on the ground. Twen­ty-three more were in­jured. — MI­A­MI (AP)

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Sto­ry by DAVID FIS­CH­ER, MARC LEVY and JEF­FREY COLLINS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Marc Levy re­port­ed from Har­ris­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia; and Jef­frey Collins re­port­ed from Co­lum­bia, South Car­oli­na. Al­so con­tribut­ing to this re­port was As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Josh Funk in Om­a­ha, Ne­bras­ka.