Miami airport lacks crushable runway-end material credited with saving 500 lives
All five people who died when an Amazon cargo jet ran off the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday were inside a ground-service van used by workers to reach planes for cleaning, Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said Tuesday.
The cargo jet crashed as it tried to land Sunday afternoon, overrunning its runway. It struck the van on airport property, then plowed through a fence and onto a local street, where it destroyed an SUV, according to authorities.
Five other people were injured. The pilot and co-pilot have been released from the hospital, Cordero-Stutz said. Two injured people remain in critical condition and a third is in stable condition.
The deceased ranged in age from 47 to 75, Cordero-Stutz said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash. One focus will be on the lack of a system at the airport to slow and stop speeding jets, the NTSB said.
Miami is not one of the 120 airports in the United States with the lightweight, crushable material at the end of runways that the Federal Aviation Administration says have saved around 500 lives.
The NTSB has identified the absence of such a system at Miami as a focus of the investigation.