What went wrong before an Amazon cargo jet barreled off the runway in Miami

Geoff Bennett:

The flight was coming from Puerto Rico, and the landing is going to be a focus of that investigation. Video posted on social media shows the Boeing 767 jet still airborne far down the runway and that the left rear landing gear did not fully settle on the ground.

Seconds later, the plane barrels across a grassy patch, crashes through a chain-link fence and slams into two vehicles. The victims have not yet been identified. Authorities say all were inside a van and an SUV struck by the plane.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy described what investigators encountered at the scene today.

Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board:

I would describe it in one word of devastating, utter devastation. I mean, you can see in the -- on the paved surface tire marks that continues through the grass. There's debris everywhere.

Geoff Bennett:

There are many questions being asked about this accident and the landing.

Our aviation correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is here with more.

So, Miles, You've looked closely at the video of this landing. What stands out to you?

Miles O'Brien:

Geoff, what I see is a non-stabilized approach in non-stable meteorological conditions. The wind was gusty. There was a tailwind, which had a crosswind component. The aircraft as it came down ended up significantly above what we call the glide slope, which is the imaginary slide which takes you down to the runway.

The crew tried to correct it and dove precipitously toward that altitude they should have been at, picking up speed. So, by the time we see them in this video, it appears this aircraft is sort of diving for the runway with a tailwind, which makes it faster over the ground and, in addition to that, a crosswind, which is what caused that left wing to go up.

And this is the key point to think about here, Geoff. They landed at about 185 miles an hour in speed, which is much higher than you would expect, about halfway down a 9,000-foot runway. And then you see that left wing lift up, and the left landing gear is not on the concrete. That's crucial, because that's what tells the airplane that it can deploy reverse thrust and the spoilers, the speed breaks on the wing.

Without those wheels on the ground, the crew would not have been able to do that. And so they left the runway at a very high rate of speed, about 130 miles an hour into the grass. And that's what we saw.

Geoff Bennett:

So, Miles, at what point should a crew abandon a landing like that?

Miles O'Brien:

Well, the textbook says, if you have an unstabilized approach -- and they were about three miles out when they were they were way above that so-called glide slope -- that probably would have been a prudent time to knock it off, as opposed to trying to dive down to catch it and get toward it.

But, certainly, if they just elected to continue and try to correct, which happens, by the time you are floating over the runway and about halfway down it, that would be the time to initiate what we call the go-around.

Geoff Bennett:

And the plane, as we saw on that video, it goes beyond the runway and through the safety area at the end. What is that area designed to do?

Miles O'Brien:

Well, there's about 1,000 feet between the end of that runway to the road. That is what the FAA requires for a runway that it arrives and departs with large aircraft. So that is to the book.

However, there are other ways that you can slow down an aircraft in these situations.

Geoff Bennett:

And that brings us to something called EMAS. What is that and could it have stopped this plane?

Miles O'Brien:

engineered material arresting system. It's basically breakable concrete. When the wheels of an aircraft get in it, it's like quicksand. It will slow an aircraft down very quickly. It's designed to accept and slow down an aircraft coming in at, say, about 80 miles an hour.

This aircraft, as we say, was arriving at the end of the runway at about 130 miles an hour. So it's unclear what the EMAS might have done in this case, but certainly it would have slowed it down further.

That said, the FAA does not require this sort of engineered material at the end of a runway if there's 1,000 feet of runway safety area, which Miami has in this case.

Geoff Bennett:

And that's why, one would imagine, Miami did not have this EMAS system.

Miles O'Brien:

Exactly.

Now, there'll be some questions raised about this. Should EMAS just be everywhere, just as another layer of safety? And there'll be some questions, of course, about what the crew was doing. And, of course, when that cockpit voice recorder is analyzed, as well as the flight data recorder, many of those questions will become much clearer, and a lot of the speeds and footages and distances will become more precise, and we can understand what happened here?

Geoff Bennett:

Our aviation correspondent, Miles O'Brien.

Miles, thanks as always.

Miles O'Brien:

You're welcome, Geoff.