NTSB: one Miami cargo pilot warned of excess speed for nearly two minutes before the overrun

The National Transportation Safety Board released cockpit-voice highlights on Wednesday that show one pilot of the Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 warning, for close to two minutes, that the jet was too fast on its approach to Miami International Airport last Sunday. The other pilot, the Board said, did not give a consistent verbal response. The 32-year-old widebody, operated by 21 Air, overran runway 30 by about 1,300 feet (396 metres), struck a van carrying aircraft-cleaning staff, hit a compact SUV on a public road and caught fire.

Five people in the van died. They were co-workers who cleaned aircraft and, a lawyer for two of the families said, had become "like a family." Five others were hurt. Two were still critical earlier in the week. The two pilots survived. The NTSB named them as Joseph Carroll, 55, and Jaime Filipe Silva Molina, 37, without saying who was flying and who was monitoring.

The timeline in the Board's summary is tight. The crew checked in with the tower and were cleared to land with about 4 minutes 18 seconds left on the recording. Landing gear came down at 2 minutes 37 seconds. Flaps 15 were called at 2 minutes 14 seconds. At 1 minute 42 seconds one pilot said they were too fast and kept talking about excess speed until the end of the tape. An automated "sink rate, sink rate" call came at 1 minute 4 seconds; the jet dropped 400 feet in four seconds at one point. "Too low terrain" sounded five times from about 48 seconds out. Sounds consistent with touchdown came at 31 seconds. A go-around was called 15 seconds after that apparent touchdown. Five seconds later the recorder picked up sounds like the aircraft leaving the paved surface.

A go-around after the wheels are on the ground is a recognised last move. It did not get the jet back in the air long enough to miss the van. Former FAA official Mike O'Donnell told local television that when the first speed call was made the crew still had options: spoilers, idle thrust, more drag, even abandoning the approach. Those options shrink once the aircraft is in the last hundred feet and then on the concrete.

The NTSB has the flight data recorder, photographed on 8 September, and has interviewed both pilots. A full transcript will come later in the investigation, not in this week's update. The Board has not assigned a probable cause. What it has done is put the speed calls, the missing consistent reply, the sink-rate warnings and the late go-around on the public record while the wreckage is still being mapped.

21 Air flies the hull for Amazon's air network. Amazon is the customer, not the airline of record. That split will matter for civil claims and for any FAA fitness questions aimed at the operator. The five dead were not on the cargo manifest. They were on a service road that a 767 should never have reached.

Sunday's accident was already a local story about a runway overrun and five cleaners. Wednesday's tape made it a crew-coordination story. One pilot saw the energy problem almost two minutes out. The jet still used the full runway and then the ground beyond it.