Amazon cargo jet may have landed too far down runway before deadly Miami crash: Expert

The crash of a cargo plane after it landed Sunday afternoon at Miami International Airport leaves plenty of questions about how it happened. Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 barreled off the runway at about 2pm Sunday, plowing across a road used by workers at businesses near the airport. Five people were killed and five others were injured. The crash sent black smoke into the sky and trapped the pilot and co-pilot and some drivers in their cars. One expert, an aviation consultant with four decades' experience as a pilot, says it appears the plane touched down much further down the runway than it should have, giving the plane less room to safely come to a stop. "It's about a 9000 foot runway. So if he had less than 4000 feet remaining, that just spelled doom for this airplane," said Kyle Bailey, an aviation consultant and private pilot in New Jersey. See also: The Ben Hotel standoff suspect allegedly confessed to friends, family after shooting He also says based on video he's seen, the plane was going faster than it should have when it landed and the left landing gear was not in contact with the runway after touchdown. "What played out probably is a result of the thunderstorm in the vicinity, as well as there appears to be a last minute wind change, where the wind kind of switched from a headwind to a tailwind, and that tailwind actually makes your ground speed a lot faster," he said. "Does this look to you like a case of pilot error or mechanical failure?" we asked him. It looks to me, this is just speculation, but with everything going wrong on that approach and touchdown, to me, if I had to place the odds on it, I would say a very strong probability of pilot error. There was probably just so much going on in the cockpit that the efforts to bring that airplane to a stop on the runway failed," Bailey explained. Bailey says in his opinion, the crash could've been prevented if the pilot had done a go-around, a common procedure where before touching down the plane goes back up in the sky and then circles and waits for the tower to give the pilot permission to come in for another landing attempt. Why does he feel this was a case of pilot error? "This conclusion is based on speculation, changing wind direction from a headwind to a tailwind, a very unstable, fast approach with a very high descent rate. And thunderstorm in the vicinity very close to the water with sea breezes, and a wind gusting to almost 30 miles per hour. Pretty much the perfect storm of everything," Bailey said. Bailey, who's a former FAA Safety Team representative, says investigators will look at several issues, including the plane's speed, braking, wind and weather conditions and the jet's maintenance records.