Federal report says pilots werent warned about wind before Amazon cargo plane crashed in Miami

Despite regulations requiring it, an air traffic controller failed to tell the pilots of an Amazon cargo plane about the potential for strong tailwinds as they landed in Miami, careening off the runway and killing five people last month, according to a preliminary report Thursday from the National Transportation Safety Board.Just four minutes before clearing the plane for landing, an air traffic controller had provided a wind advisory to a different flight, noting gusts of up to 25 mph from the south.But the controller “did not issue information about the wind” to the pilots of the Amazon cargo plane, the report said.According to federal regulations, “both wind direction and velocity were required to be stated when authorizing use of a runway when a tailwind component exists,” the NTSB report said.The preliminary report did not list a cause of the crash.The ongoing investigation could take more than a year to complete.The airplane, carrying packages of contact lenses for Amazon, came in fast after a flight from Puerto Rico and barreled roughly 1,200 feet past the end of the runway at Miami International Airport on Sept.

6.It smashed into a van carrying workers for a company that cleans airplanes.Five people who were in the van died.Two others in the van sustained serious injuries, as did the driver of a car that was hit by the plane.The two pilots had minor injuries.Experts said it appears the weather played at least some role in the accident.Tailwinds can make it harder to slow a plane and push it past an ideal landing spot on a runway.“When you’ve got winds like that, it is your responsibility as a controller to issue that to a pilot, especially on landing and especially when you have gusts,” said Tony Mello, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who oversaw air traffic control services in the central US.Landing with a gusting tail wind “requires more concentration on the part of the pilot” but is not impossible, said former NTSB me...