A video recorded with a cell phone captured the moment when one of the pilots of the Amazon cargo plane that went off the runway at the Miami International Airport jumped out of the cockpit door and ran away as the plane was burning, according to a report by Telemundo 51.
The accident, which happened on Sunday, resulted in five deaths and five injuries.
The witness who recorded the scene
The author of the recording was Olvin Henriquez, who was passing through the vicinity of the airport with his family —including his four-month-old daughter— when the Boeing 767-300 from the airline 21 Air, operated for Amazon Air, exceeded the end of runway 30, crossed the airport perimeter, and struck at least two vehicles.
"It was shocking to witness all of that; then, unexpectedly, we saw the pilot jump out of the cockpit door and run for his life as the plane quickly caught fire," Henriquez told Telemundo 51.
"My family and I immediately turned the car around, fearing that the plane could explode violently,” he added.
The witness also described a scene of disturbing silence just moments before the impact:
"Everything was very quiet; despite being so close, none of us heard the plane dragging along the ground. Before we realized it, we saw that huge plane engulfed in flames and the wrecked track in front of us."
The proximity of his family to the final trajectory of the aircraft left him shaken: "Just thinking that, only moments before, my entire family could have been swept away by the plane—like unfortunately happened to other vehicles and people—terrifies me," he wrote to the local channel NBC6.
Five dead, all in the vehicles
Flight 7598 had departed from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Upon exceeding the end of the runway, the aircraft traveled approximately 396 meters beyond the pavement and struck a van belonging to the contractor Professional Ocean Service Corporation, which was transporting seven cleaning workers, as well as a civil utility vehicle situated outside the perimeter.
All the fatalities were in the vehicles, not on board the plane. Three people were transported in critical condition to a trauma center; two others were admitted with less serious injuries.
The two pilots were initially trapped in the cockpit, according to the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. Both received medical attention and were discharged.
More than 60 units and around 200 personnel responded to the scene, using specialized foam to combat the fire and working for hours to control a fuel leak.
The federal investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have opened formal investigations, as detailed by Infobae. Investigators have already recovered the black boxes for analysis in Washington.
A key point will be determining where the plane landed: the regulations state that this contact must occur within the first 3,000 feet of the runway.
Data from Flightradar24 indicates that the aircraft was traveling at about 210 kilometers per hour when it left the operational area.
The pilot and former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo, told the Associated Press that the footage appears to show that the plane did not raise its nose during landing, and she suggested that a tailwind may have extended the runway distance.
Aviation security expert Steve Arroyo added that if the aircraft traveled that distance without landing, the crew should have aborted the maneuver.
The debate about the EMAS system
The accident reignited the discussion about the absence of the EMAS system in Miami, a mechanism present in more than 120 airports in the U.S. that stops aircraft in overruns through a bed of deformable material at the end of the runway.
The FAA reports that the EMAS has saved at least 497 lives in 26 incidents.
Captain Francisco Díaz, who claimed to have piloted the same aircraft a decade ago, described the landing as an "unstable approach"; and he urged: "Miami Airport is investing 9 billion dollars in infrastructure. Please include a system like EMAS for all runways."
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