The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States released excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder of the Amazon cargo flight that went off the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, resulting in the death of five people.
According to the federal agency, one of the pilots repeatedly warned his colleague for nearly two minutes that the plane was coming in too fast, and at the last moment requested to abort the maneuver. The other never provided "a coherent verbal response" to those warnings.
Mike O’Donnell, former official of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), explained to the agency AP that once the pilot warned that the plane was approaching too quickly, the crew had ample time to take actions to reduce speed: deploying the speed brakes, reducing engine power, and lowering the landing gear. Another option could have been to abort the landing at that moment and make a go-around before attempting it again.
"There is plenty of time to reduce speed and enough time to decide to perform a go-around maneuver when there are two minutes left for landing," noted O'Donnell, who previously oversaw airport security and aircraft accident investigations.
The data from the flight recorder reconstructed the last 30 seconds of the accident: the Boeing 767-300 touched down at 158 knots, a high speed for that phase of the flight.
A finding that has garnered the attention of researchers is that the records show no evidence that the crew deployed the air brakes or thrust reversers, two systems specifically designed to slow down the aircraft during landing.
The plane overshot the end of the runway by about 1,300 feet (396 meters), crossed a perimeter fence, collided with a car and a van belonging to the contractor Professional Ocean Service Corporation, which was transporting seven cleaning workers, before catching fire.
The chairwoman of the NTSB, Jennifer Homendy, stated that the recorder contains over two hours of good quality audio, but the complete transcription will not be made public until the analysis of the interviews with the pilots is concluded.
The two pilots - Joseph Carroll, 55 years old, and the first officer Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, 37 - suffered minor injuries and were discharged before being interviewed by NTSB investigators on Wednesday. Carroll had accumulated 7,145 flight hours and Silva Molina had 2,655.
The complete investigation, which will include maintenance records and operational documents from 21 Air—the cargo airline based in North Carolina that operated the flight for Amazon Prime Air—could take months to conclude.
As a result of the accident, five people lost their lives, all of Cuban origin: Rolando Alemán León (55 years old; from Cruces, Cienfuegos), Yoel Rodríguez Naranjo (53), Julio C. Pineda (75), Carlos Acosta Fajardo (53), and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo (47 years old; from Guanabacoa, Havana). Five others were injured; two remain in critical condition.
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