MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Authorities are investigating a plane crash that has killed five people in Miami. Details of the incident remain unclear, even though Fire Chief Ray Jadallah said rescue vehicles arrived at the site of the crash almost immediately.
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RAY JADALLAH: The airplane did strike a couple of vehicles. That required (ph) a couple of victims that were actually trapped in the vehicles. So a complex extrication with our technical rescue team started to occur.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
An Amazon Prime cargo plane was landing at Miami International Airport around 2 p.m. Eastern when it overran the runway, crashed and rammed into vehicles on the ground. Five people were injured as well. It's not yet clear how many of the people killed or hurt were on board the plane or on the ground. Amazon says the plane was operated by 21 Air, a contract cargo carrier.
MARTIN: NPR's Arezou Rezvani has been following the story, and she's with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Arezou.
AREZOU REZVANI, BYLINE: Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: So investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board have started arriving in Miami. What are they going to be looking at to try to figure out what caused this crash?
REZVANI: They'll be looking at everything from possible mechanical failure to environmental variables to flight crew performance. I spoke with Peter Goelz last night. He's the former managing director of the NTSB. He's now a transportation safety consultant. And he explained to me how this usually goes.
PETER GOELZ: They'll listen to the cockpit voice recorder to make sure that the pilots were following their checklists, were aware of the extenuating circumstances. They will look at the data recorder, which will tell them how fast the plane was going, when it touched down, what sort of braking action was applied by the crew.
REZVANI: Another detail investigators will likely examine are thunderstorms and winds that were directly over the airport at the time of the crash. Weather conditions are often a reason to delay or avoid a landing, but it's still a little too early to tell if weather was a key factor in this crash.
MARTIN: OK. And do I have this right - that it's usually a combination of factors that causes plane crashes?
REZVANI: Yes. That's right. And that's a big reason why these investigations are so extensive and take so much time. It's typically a series of cascading factors that contribute to any crash.
MARTIN: But how unusual is it for a plane to overrun the runway?
REZVANI: Well, it's enough of a concern that for the last couple of decades, many airports, particularly those with shorter runways, have set up an engineered materials arresting system, or EMAS, which is basically this crushable material placed at the end of a runway designed to help stop a plane that overruns the runway. These systems are not mandated by the FAA. And Miami International Airport doesn't have that in place because the runways there are pretty long, which is why this crash at this particular airport is a bit curious.
MARTIN: And this was an Amazon plane that was operated by a contract cargo carrier. Could that figure into the investigation?
REZVANI: Yeah. You know, this is something that also caught the attention of Goelz, the former NTSB director. And he thinks investigators will examine that corporate relationship that put this plane in the air to see, you know, who was responsible for flight-crew training, who was responsible for maintenance. So I think as this investigation goes on, that will be a space to watch.
MARTIN: And this crash happened on Labor Day weekend, which is one of the busiest travel periods. Did it affect other flights?
REZVANI: It certainly did on Sunday. All runways and taxiways at Miami International were closed for several hours. That caused massive delays and cancellations. And that, of course, meant long lines at the airport, with passengers rebooking flights, which in some cases kept getting canceled. It's unclear how much of that will continue today, but the airport's website says two of the four runways are back open now.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Arezou Rezvani. Arezou, thank you.
REZVANI: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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