By
Lauren Rosenblatt
Seattle Times business reporter
The Amazon cargo plane that overran a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday, killing five people and injuring five others, did not deploy two critical systems meant to slow an airplane after landing, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
There was no indication that the plane’s thrust reversers or speed brakes had deployed before the 767 skidded off the end of the Miami runway, the NTSB’s investigator in charge for this accident, Chihoon Shin, said at a news briefing Tuesday evening.
Shin was providing initial data points from the aircraft’s flight data recorder and cautioned it was too soon to determine what those data points indicated and why the thrust reversers and speed brakes had not been deployed.
“Right now, I’m not going to speculate about what should have been,” Shin said. “We have an aircraft performance study; we’re going to do that. Was it normal? Was it not? What was working? What was not? I’m not going to speculate.”
The flight data recorder also showed that, about 15 seconds before the end of the aircraft’s recording, the plane’s throttle “increased to values consistent with go-around thrust,” Shin said.
A “go-around” is when the pilots choose to bring the plane back up, circle and attempt a landing again, if they do not feel they can land safely on the original attempt. In the days since the fatal crash, many aviation safety experts have wondered why the pilots continued to land the aircraft instead of performing a go-around.
Investigators plan to interview the two pilots Wednesday to gain a better understanding of what was happening inside and what actions the pilots may have taken.
“What we need to do is talk to the crew to understand how they were manipulating the controls,” Shin said. “With the cockpit voice recorder, while we have that data, crew accounts and crew interviews will help fill in some of the blanks for us.”
The plane, a 32-year-old Boeing 767 that started as a passenger plane before being converted to a freighter, was carrying more than 32,000 pounds of cargo, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday. Most of that cargo was contact lenses.
767 cargo plane crash
An Amazon 767 cargo plane, operated by 21 Air, overran a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday, crashing into fences and two vehicles. The crash killed five people in a van transporting employees of an airline cleaning company and injured five others.
Sources: National Transportation Safety Board, CNN, Esri, Google Map, Boeing (Reporting by Lauren Rosenblatt, graphic by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)
Operated by cargo carrier 21 Air on behalf of Amazon, the plane overran a runway as it was returning from a flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The plane struck “navigational aids,” pushed through fences and collided with two vehicles: a white Ford van transporting employees of an airline cleaning company and a Toyota Corolla Cross traveling on a road outside the airport.
The five people who died were inside the van belonging to the cleaning company, Professional Ocean Service Corporation.
On Tuesday, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office released the identities of those who had been killed. The victims were 55-year-old Rolando Aleman Leon, 53-year-old Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 75-year-old Julio C. Pineda, 53-year-old Carlos Acosta Fajardo and 47-year-old Javierkys Reyes Quevedo.
Two people who were injured remain in critical condition, 79-year-old Eugenio Corredor, who was traveling in the passenger vehicle outside the airport, and 32-year-old Ridoel Averhoff Diaz, who was in the cleaning company’s van.
Lauren Rosenblatt
Seattle Times business reporter
The Amazon cargo plane that overran a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday, killing five people and injuring five others, did not deploy two critical systems meant to slow an airplane after landing, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
There was no indication that the plane’s thrust reversers or speed brakes had deployed before the 767 skidded off the end of the Miami runway, the NTSB’s investigator in charge for this accident, Chihoon Shin, said at a news briefing Tuesday evening.
Shin was providing initial data points from the aircraft’s flight data recorder and cautioned it was too soon to determine what those data points indicated and why the thrust reversers and speed brakes had not been deployed.
“Right now, I’m not going to speculate about what should have been,” Shin said. “We have an aircraft performance study; we’re going to do that. Was it normal? Was it not? What was working? What was not? I’m not going to speculate.”
The flight data recorder also showed that, about 15 seconds before the end of the aircraft’s recording, the plane’s throttle “increased to values consistent with go-around thrust,” Shin said.
A “go-around” is when the pilots choose to bring the plane back up, circle and attempt a landing again, if they do not feel they can land safely on the original attempt. In the days since the fatal crash, many aviation safety experts have wondered why the pilots continued to land the aircraft instead of performing a go-around.
Related
- Amazon 767 didn’t take usual steps to slow before Miami crash, NTSB says
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Investigators plan to interview the two pilots Wednesday to gain a better understanding of what was happening inside and what actions the pilots may have taken.
“What we need to do is talk to the crew to understand how they were manipulating the controls,” Shin said. “With the cockpit voice recorder, while we have that data, crew accounts and crew interviews will help fill in some of the blanks for us.”
The plane, a 32-year-old Boeing 767 that started as a passenger plane before being converted to a freighter, was carrying more than 32,000 pounds of cargo, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday. Most of that cargo was contact lenses.
767 cargo plane crash
An Amazon 767 cargo plane, operated by 21 Air, overran a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday, crashing into fences and two vehicles. The crash killed five people in a van transporting employees of an airline cleaning company and injured five others.
Sources: National Transportation Safety Board, CNN, Esri, Google Map, Boeing (Reporting by Lauren Rosenblatt, graphic by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)
Operated by cargo carrier 21 Air on behalf of Amazon, the plane overran a runway as it was returning from a flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The plane struck “navigational aids,” pushed through fences and collided with two vehicles: a white Ford van transporting employees of an airline cleaning company and a Toyota Corolla Cross traveling on a road outside the airport.
The five people who died were inside the van belonging to the cleaning company, Professional Ocean Service Corporation.
On Tuesday, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office released the identities of those who had been killed. The victims were 55-year-old Rolando Aleman Leon, 53-year-old Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 75-year-old Julio C. Pineda, 53-year-old Carlos Acosta Fajardo and 47-year-old Javierkys Reyes Quevedo.
Two people who were injured remain in critical condition, 79-year-old Eugenio Corredor, who was traveling in the passenger vehicle outside the airport, and 32-year-old Ridoel Averhoff Diaz, who was in the cleaning company’s van.