Amazon does not own most of the aircraft with its name on them. Amazon Air is a freight network that contracts the flying out to other carriers, and Flight 7598, the Boeing 767 freighter that ran off the end of Runway 30 at Miami International on 6 September, belonged to one of them: 21 Air, a cargo operator based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Five people on the ground were killed and five more injured. On Sunday Amazon said it was pausing its operations with the airline.
The NTSB pulled both recorders from the wreck and read them within three days. What the cockpit voice recorder holds is a disagreement about speed. About a minute and forty seconds before the recording ends, one pilot calls for the flaps to be set to 20 degrees and the other cautions that they are going too fast, then keeps saying so for the rest of the tape. The board's update notes there was not a consistent verbal response.
The last minute of the flight is a run of automated warnings. The system called sink rate twice, then minimums, then too low terrain four times over, and the aircraft touched down at a groundspeed of 158 knots. Roughly sixteen seconds later a pilot called for a go-around, the throttles went up, then back to idle, and the brakes went on again. The flight data recorder shows no indication that the speed brakes or the thrust reversers were ever deployed.
What a pause actually costs
Amazon said it had spent the week supporting the investigation and reviewing the surrounding circumstances before deciding, and that it expects little if any effect on its customers. That is the point of running a freight network on contracted carriers: the aircraft belong to somebody else, the crew works for somebody else, and the work can be moved. For 21 Air the arithmetic runs the other way. Its other major customer is DHL, which told the New York Times only that it continually assesses its network and its relationships with service providers.
The airline says its own procedures held up. In a statement to Reuters, 21 Air said it remained focused on supporting the families and on working with the NTSB and its partners, and that it is confident in its safety policies, procedures and training. Its website has carried the same condolence message from chief executive Keith Winters since the day of the crash, and has not been updated to mention Amazon at all.
None of this is settled. The NTSB's update says plainly that the recorder data is preliminary and subject to change, and the board will not name a cause until it publishes a final report, which the New York Times reports could take a year or more. The same paper reports that several former 21 Air employees have raised safety concerns in a whistle-blower case filed with the US Labor Department. Amazon put no end date on the pause.
