Amazon Air First Officer Repeatedly Warned Captain Of Excessive Speed Before Fatal Miami Crash

Over the weekend we saw a tragic accident at Miami Airport (MIA), involving a Boeing 767 belonging to cargo operator 21 Air (operating on behalf of Amazon Air). The plane overran the runway, and ultimately hit two cars, claiming five lives.

As usual, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is doing a stellar job with its investigation, including how it’s communicating. Yesterday I covered what we learned from the last 30 seconds of the flight data recorder. The NTSB has now released some details from what was heard during the final minutes on the cockpit voice recorder, and it points to an absolutely infuriating level of crew resource management (CRM).

The Amazon Air 767 cockpit voice recorder is a disaster

While a direct transcript hasn’t been released, the NTSB has shared what was observed during the final six (or so) minutes of the cockpit voice recorder of the Amazon Air Boeing 767, before it stopped recording. Below are the observations, and then we’ll talk more about it.

Since the pilots are being referred to as “a pilot” and “other pilot,” let’s just clarify that it was the 55-year-old ex-Army Black Hawk captain who was flying the plane, while the 37-year-old Colombian born first officer was the one working the radios.

We know this because all of the racists who immediately started yelling “DEI” from the rooftops before any details were made available drew conclusions based on the pilot communicating having an accent. What they conveniently ignored is that the pilot communicating is specifically the pilot not flying.

Two things stand out about the cockpit voice recorder details. First of all, 1min42sec before the end of the recording (and 1min11sec before touchdown), there’s this:

​A pilot called for flaps t​o be set to 20 degrees, and the other pilot cautioned they were too fast. The other pilot made additional comments regarding the aircraft’s excessive speed throughout the remainder of the recording. There was not a consistent verbal response to the comments about speed.

So the first officer warned the captain that they were going too fast, and continued to make comments about that all the way until the accident, but he didn’t receive consistent acknowledgment of that? Wow…

Second of all, 39sec before the end of the recording (and 8sec before touchdown), there was a “too low terrain” warning. As pointed out by the brilliant Steve Giordano, at that point the flaps hadn’t yet reached 30 degrees. They were literally still configuring the aircraft while it was over the runway, flying excessively fast.

The lack of airmanship shown here is beyond awful

Remember how we saw that landing video of the Boeing 767 shortly after the accident? Many of us wondered what on earth was going on in the cockpit. Now we know — the pilots also had no clue what was going on.

This is just insanity. You had an extremely inexperienced captain on the aircraft (he had been on the Boeing 767 for three months) ignoring every possible warning, and squandering every possible chance to go around. And this also obviously points out the horrible training and safety standards that 21 Air must have, if pilots call out things, only to basically be ignored.

Now, the first officer doesn’t get a pass either. He repeatedly mentioned the excessive speed on the final approach, and alarm bells must’ve been going off in his head. Why did he not call a go around?! Did he just not feel comfortable speaking up to the captain, did he trust the captain had things under control (even though he clearly didn’t), or what? Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal” certainly comes to mind.

Unfortunately I think this part of the first officer’s LinkedIn profile doesn’t exactly ring true: “known for being dependable, adaptable, and detail-oriented, I thrive in dynamic environments where professionalism, communication, and sound decision-making are essential.” If he had put that sound decision making to work in this case and called a go around earlier, five people would still be alive.

Bottom line

Within days of the deadly Amazon Air Boeing 767 accident in Miami, we have a pretty clear picture of what happened, and there’s simply no denying that pilot error was at least a major factor in this, if not the only factor.

During the final seconds of the flight, the first officer repeatedly warned of excessive speed, and didn’t receive full responses from the captain. They even got a terrain warning seconds before landing, and were still configuring the flaps over the runway. There’s zero reason that a go around shouldn’t have been called much earlier than it was.

This is all absolutely horrifying, and I imagine that 21 Air’s pilot training program will be under quite some scrutiny in the coming days and weeks. I guess this is the issue with us wanting our cheap Amazon packages, and flying going out to the lowest bidder.

What do you make of these Amazon Air cockpit voice recorder details?