A pilot of the Amazon cargo plane in Miami crash warned it was coming in too fast
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it → warn → crash
For nearly two minutes, one of the pilots of the Amazon cargo plane that careened off a Miami runway and killed five people repeatedly warned his counterpart they were going too fast as they approached for landing and after touchdown, according to flight information released Wednesday.
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they → careen → information
A summary of cockpit voice recordings compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board said the fellow pilot never gave "a consistent verbal response" to the warnings.
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pilot → compile → warnings
The plane touched down awkwardly, briefly attempted to take off and then smashed into a van carrying the five victims.
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plane → touch → victims
The Amazon plane came in fast on Sunday afternoon and then barreled roughly 1,300 feet (396 meters) past the end of the runway and smashed into a van carrying workers at a plane cleaning company before hitting a compact SUV as it slid across a public road before catching fire.
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it → come → fire
All five people who died were in the van.
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who → die → van
Five others were hurt, including two who remained in critical condition on Tuesday.
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who → hurt → Tuesday
The two pilots survived and were interviewed Wednesday by investigators.
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pilots → survive → investigators
The pilots had time to correct or abandon their landing
At the point when the pilot first called out the plane was speeding, former FAA official Mike O'Donnell said the crew could have done a number of things to slow it down, including extending the spoilers, cutting the throttles and lowering the landing gear.
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crew → have → gear
Or the pilots could have just aborted the landing at that point and circled to try again.
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pilots → abort → point
"You have plenty of time to slow down, plenty of time to say, let's just do a go-around at two minutes out," said O'Donnell, who used to oversee airport safety and crash investigations.
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who → have → safety
Plane was unsteady as it approached the ground
Information from the flight data recorder that was released late Tuesday shows how unsteady the plane was as it came in to land amid strong winds, and then the pilots briefly disengaged the brakes and shoved the throttles up as if they were trying to take off again and retry the landing.
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they → approach → landing
But they abandoned that just four seconds later.
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they → abandon → that
The cockpit audio recordings also captured a series of automated warnings from the plane about the speed of descent and the approaching terrain.
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recordings → capture → descent
O'Donnell said those terrain warnings reinforce that the plane was unsteady and suggest it may not have been configured correctly for landing.
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it → say → landing
The Amazon plane was well down the runway when its right and nose landing gear first touched down, reducing how much distance the plane had on the runway ahead of it to stop.
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plane → touch → it
Strong winds at the airport as storms moved in may have created a tail wind that helped propel the plane forward.
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that → move → plane
Tracking site Flightradar24 estimated based on the NTSB data that the plane was nearly halfway down the 9,360-foot runway when it first touched down.
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it → estimate → runway
The full transcript of the cockpit conversation won't be released until later in the investigation.
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transcript → release → investigation
Experts question how well the pilots worked together
Several experts have said the pilots should have aborted that landing while the plane was still in the air and circled around to retry it.
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plane → question → it
Former airline pilot and safety expert Steve Arroyo said the details released Wednesday show a lack of teamwork in the cockpit and suggest the pilot at the controls may have been too focused on the landing to acknowledge the speed warnings.
"Where's the coordination?
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coordination → say → warnings
Where's the leadership here in terms of managing the flight deck?
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leadership → manage → deck
following the trained guidelines set forth in the company's flight manual?" Arroyo questioned.
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Arroyo → follow → manual
Mary Schiavo, who is a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, said she wonders if the pilot at the controls was the more senior captain while the less experienced first officer called out the warnings "and the junior pilot was not aggressive in challenging."
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pilot → say → warnings
Investigators will consider everything that may have been a factor
The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for several airlines in foreign countries for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.
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Boeing → consider → Flightradar24
The final flight was operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina that has been flying packages for Amazon since 2024.
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that → operate → 2024
The jet's ownership history, weather conditions at the airport, maintenance records and operations by 21 Air were expected to be reviewed by NTSB investigators.
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history → expect → investigators
A UPS plane crashed after losing its engine while accelerating down the runway at Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport in October.
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plane → crash → October
The crash killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground.
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crash → kill → ground
Twenty-three more were injured.
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three → injure → ?
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