The NTSB said Miami cargo plane approach speed warnings repeated in the cockpit before Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598 overshot a runway and crashed on Sunday. One pilot told the other the Boeing 767-300 was going too fast as the approach continued, and the aircraft later came to rest about 1,300ft beyond the runway.
The crash killed five people and injured five more. Miami authorities on Tuesday identified the dead as Rolando Aleman Leon, Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, Julio C Pineda, Carlos Acosta Fajardo and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, all part of a plane-cleaning crew in the white Ford van struck after the runway overrun.
Miami runway overrun details
The NTSB said the aircraft’s landing speed was 158 knots, or 292km/h, as it approached the runway. Its update added flight-data details on speed, altitude and flap deployment, showing the descent remained under scrutiny in the final moments.
After the overshoot, the plane struck equipment on the ground, hit the white Ford van, continued through a perimeter fence and then collided with a Toyota Corolla. That sequence left the crash site spread beyond the runway and tied the deaths directly to the ground impact that followed the runway overrun.
NTSB cockpit warnings
The NTSB said one pilot warned the other multiple times about “the aircraft’s excessive speed,” and that the cautions continued through the remainder of the recording. The update also said there was an electronic “sink rate sink rate” callout during the final minutes and an electronic “too low terrain” callout.
The same update said there was “there was but not a consistent verbal response” in the cockpit even as those alerts sounded. Pablo Rojas, an aviation attorney, told CBS News, “But, it really confirms that this was, in a way, a doomed approach,” a view that reflects how the speed warnings and cockpit response now sit at the center of the investigation.
Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the crash and has already added the speed, altitude, flap and warning-callout details from Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598 to the public record. For the families of the five dead and the five injured, the next question is less about the crash site than the final minutes in the cockpit: why the approach stayed fast and why the response did not stay consistent.
