The Amazon cargo plane that went off the runway at Miami International Airport last Sunday has begun to be dismantled for relocation, a spokesperson for the airport confirmed to Local 10 News.
According to the media report, several cranes surround the crashed aircraft as crews work on separating its components and collecting debris still scattered across the parking lot, the grass, and part of the runway.
The date of the transfer has not yet been determined.
The removal is urgent for the airport: since the accident, only three of its four runways remain operational, leading to dozens of flight delays and keeping the terminal operating below its full capacity.
As the dismantling progresses, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continues its investigation at the site and expects to remain for approximately another week.
Researchers have begun to reveal critical data extracted from the aircraft's black boxes.
The cabin voice recorder shows that one of the pilots warned that the plane was traveling too fast more than a minute before it touched down for the first time, without receiving a consistent verbal response from the other pilot. The recording also registered automated terrain proximity alerts during the descent.
In the last 15 seconds of the recording, one of the pilots requested to perform the maneuver to lift the aircraft and retry the landing. Five seconds later, the plane had already gone off the runway.
The flight data recorder also indicates that the throttles were at full power just seconds before impact and that the speed brakes and thrust reversers were not deployed, factors that may have contributed to the aircraft's inability to stop in time.
The aviation expert Pablo Rojas described the sequence of decisions made by the crew as crucial. "First they were trying to land, reduce the speed of the aircraft, stop it; then they hesitated and perhaps attempted to do a go-around, that is, to accelerate again. Then they made another change in their decision, which was to try to land once more," he explained. "That kind of hesitation is fatal on a runway like this," he concluded.
The NTSB still has an extensive process ahead before officially determining the cause of the accident. In addition to the data from the black boxes and the interviews with the pilots, investigators will analyze the weather conditions from Sunday, the mechanical history of the 32-year-old aircraft, and the training records of the two crew members.
Both survived the accident. Witness Abraham Altamar encountered pilot Jaime Felipe Silva Molina moments after he escaped from the burning airplane. He lent him his phone to call his wife and overheard part of the conversation: "He was saying, 'Oh, my career, my career is over.'"
The accident occurred on Sunday at 1:53 PM local time, when the Boeing 767-300 of flight Prime Air 7598 overshot the end of the runway by about 1,300 feet (396 meters), crossed a perimeter fence, collided with a car and a van carrying seven cleaning workers, before catching fire.
As a result, five people traveling in the van lost their lives. They were all of Cuban origin: Rolando Alemán León (55 years old), Yoel Rodríguez Naranjo (53), Julio C. Pineda (75), Carlos Acosta Fajardo (53), and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo (47).
On Monday, the law firm Morgan & Morgan filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the Miami-Dade court against Amazon.com Inc. and 21 Air LLC, among others, alleging criminal negligence, pilot error, and insufficient training, on behalf of the family of Yoel Rodríguez Naranjo.
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