An air traffic controller failed to warn the pilots of an Amazon jet about windy conditions when giving them permission to land at Miami International Airport last month, just before they overran the runway and crashed into two vehicles, according to a federal report about the incident published on Thursday. Five people died in the accident.
Federal regulations require controllers to tell pilots when a landing could be affected by strong tailwinds, which blow in the direction the aircraft is moving and can increase a jet’s speed over the ground, according to the report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The analysis did not conclude whether wind warnings might have changed the calculations of the plane’s captain, who pressed on toward the airport despite the co-pilot and the plane’s automated systems cautioning that the aircraft was approaching too fast.
When the airplane crossed over the start of the runway, it was moving at over 203 miles per hour and was still over a hundred feet in the air, according to the report. That approach was considered unsafe for landing.
The report offers insight into apparent communication breakdowns — between air traffic control and the pilots, and among the pilots themselves — in the moments leading up to the fatal crash on Sept. 6. The N.T.S.B. is not expected to identify a probable cause for the crash until it issues a final report, which may not be released for at least a year.
A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union representing controllers, declined to comment, citing an open investigation.
In a statement, 21 Air, the contractor operating the Amazon flight, said that the airline took safety seriously.
“Since current ownership acquired the company in April 2021, safety has been a core focus of our organization,” the company said. “Our executive leadership team is actively engaged in managing operational risk and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. We encourage employees at every level to raise concerns and share feedback.”
Video footage of the incident and flight data recorder information previously released by the N.T.S.B. suggested that the pilots struggled to bring the plane’s landing gear to the ground. According to Thursday’s report, the plane was still traveling at 130 miles per hour when it crossed the end of the runway, seconds after the captain seemingly tried to abort the landing, according to data presented in the report.
While the full picture of what ensued in the cockpit has not been revealed, investigators noted in the report that the captain and the first officer had never flown together before the day of the crash.
“A lack of experience in the cockpit together might have impaired their communications and ability to work together,” said Pablo Rojas, a lawyer for Podhurst Orseck, a Miami law firm that specializes in aviation crashes and represents one of the survivors of the airport crash.
Others said the lack of familiarity the pilots had with each other should not have mattered, had they been appropriately training.
The report suggests a “total breakdown and failure of crew coordination,” said Steve Arroyo, an aviation expert and former United Airlines pilot.
Both pilots joined 21 Air, the subcontractor operating the Amazon flight, during a rapid company expansion in recent years. In 2021, when the airline was purchased by its current owners, it operated just two planes and employed slightly more than a dozen pilots, two 21 Air executives said in an interview. By June of this year, the airline’s fleet had expanded to 20 planes, with 160 pilots on staff.
Amazon suspended its contract with 21 Air after the crash. Before the deadly episode, eight of the airline’s 20 planes were dedicated to Amazon operations, according to Luis Alvarado, the company’s chief operating officer, and Anthony Tirri, its director of operations and chief pilot.
The captain of the plane was hired in April and had accrued more than 7,200 hours of flight experience before the crash, according to the report. But only 150 of those hours were in the cockpit of a Boeing 767, the model of the plane that crashed.
Mr. Tirri said that pilots hired by the airline as captains come to company with an average of 11,000 hours of flight experience.
The airline hired the first officer of the flight early last year. He had roughly 2,800 hours of flight experience by the time of the crash, including 800 in a Boeing 767, according to the report. Pilots hired as first officers have an average of more than 7,000 hours of flight experience, according to Mr. Tirri.
Mr. Tirri and Mr. Alvarado declined to answer questions about the crash, citing restrictions on parties to N.T.S.B. investigations. But Mr. Tirri emphasized that the airline did not punish pilots for aborted landings.
“We truly want it to be a no-reprimand policy for go-arounds,” he said. “We train for go-arounds.”
David Ovalle contributed reporting from Miami.
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