NTSB Prelim 21Air 767 Crash MIA 5 Sept 2026

The NTSB preliminary report is out on the 21-air Boeing 767 runway overrun that occurred in Miami, Florida back on 6 September. There's not a whole lot of new information that we haven't already discussed on this channel, but there are some hard numbers that we need to review. My name is Juan Brown. This video is brought to you by the viewers like you that sponsor this channel here on Patreon. Thank you for your support. When news of this report came out to the legacy media, NBC News and Reuters down here picked up on one line in the NTSB report and blamed the accident on the fact that the controllers didn't warn the pilots about the wind conditions that they were landing in at the time of the accident, missing the entire point as to the cause of this accident. One of the most egregious, unstabilized approaches in recent aviation history, especially when it comes to large aircraft like the 767. Starting now with the history of the flight, we now know that the crew had flown from Miami down to San Juan, Puerto Rico and back. On the day of the accident, they reported for duty at about 0530 Eastern Daylight Time there in Miami. They landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico about nine o'clock in the morning. Then they departed San Juan about 1124 and arrived in Miami about 230 in the afternoon. And they verified that the captain was the pilot flying and the FO was the pilot monitoring, which is what we suspected based on the ATC radio communications. According to ADS-B data, the flight crossed the runway threshold at 105 feet above the ground that normally should be 50 feet above the ground and at a ground speed of 177 knots, which is about 30 knots too fast. They were landing here on runway 30 and the runway length for runway 30 is about 9,360 feet. The accident airplane touched down at 3,750 feet past the threshold at a ground speed of 160 knots, so nearly halfway down the runway. They departed the departure into the runway at 113 knots and went a total distance of about 1,200 feet beyond the end of the paved runway. When the aircraft departed the runway, it went through a couple of localizer antennas, then crossed the airport perimeter road shown here in blue, and then a 67th Avenue outside the airport perimeter before coming to a rest here 1,200 feet away and in the process impacted the white Ford Econoline van that had seven airport employees on that van. Five were killed, two seriously injured, and one seriously injured in this Toyota Corolla cross SUV. After the accident, the captain egressed the airplane out the one left door and the FO out the right cockpit window. One question I have about that on the one left door, did the captain disarm the door before he egressed or did the slide fail to inflate here on the one left door? After the crew left the cockpit, the investigators found the cockpit configured like this with the speed brake lever in the down and stowed position, the thrust levers up in the very first detent, throttle levers back at the idle detent, fuel control switches in the cutoff position with the fire handles pulled and rotated, and the flap handle in the flaps 25 position. So it looks like they initiated an emergency egress out of the cockpit. Here's the summary of some of the events on the CVR which we talked about in a previous update, and as a reminder they've got numerous warnings of sink rate, sink rate on the way in, too low terrain enunciated at least four times, that's because they're approaching the end of the runway and they're not not even on the ground, and the captain calling for flaps 30 somewhere between the 40 foot call out and the 100 foot call out. The final flap setting should have been way back there at 1,000 feet above the ground, and the captain calling for a go-around at just 15 seconds prior to the end of the recording within 900 feet of the end of the runway. Here's a series of stills that I took from the video showing the aircraft landing nearly halfway down the runway with a quartering tailwind but still within operational limits of less than or right at the 10 knot tailwind component, but with this left quartering tailwind he's horsing the aircraft on the right main and the nose gear and the left main is still up and tilted. Here here here and even here the right main gear is still tilted and then comes back up again as the pilot struggles with his crosswind control allowing the wind to pick up this left wing, the left crosswind picking up the left wing preventing the left gear from settling down and untilting, and now when we take a look at the data you'll be able to see what that causes. By the way here's a view of the throttle quadrant on a 767, an example of one, and here's the different flap positions on the 767 flaps 1, 5, 15, 20. So they had the flaps 20 for landing. Flaps 20 are normally reserved for single engine approaches and landings. Normally flaps 25 and 30 are the landing position. The captain did not call for flaps 30 until he was just about touchdown on the runway and remember also on the CVR the FO pointed out that he was too fast for the flaps 20 speed initially. Now let's look at the data. 13.53.05 right about here is where we see the gear weight on the wheel switch begin to activate. So this is about the point where the aircraft begins to touchdown on the right main landing gear. The left main landing gear weight on wheels is not activated until much later in the landing roll. Let me zoom in here so you can see this a little better but here's the left main landing gear up in the air still in the tilted position and the right main landing gear switching back and forth between are we in the air or are we on the ground completely confusing the air-ground logic of the 767. Note also the flap handle position here we are at flaps 20 the whole time and not rolling flaps 30 until just about prior to touchdown and then look at this the flap handle comes up to flaps 25 after the call for the go-around. The engine is at idle RPM and then the pilot calls the captain called for that go-around with within 900 feet of the end of the runway he pushes the throttles up and then retards them to idle and somebody gets the flaps up to 25 as they depart the end of the runway. Note also here at 13.52.25 about a half minute prior to landing vertical speed is in excess of 2,000 feet per minute where it is supposed to be less than or equal to 1,000 feet per minute. Now because of the confusion of the air-ground sensor system on the Boeing 767 there are no auto spoilers deployed and there is no effort by the crew to manually deploy the spoilers via the speed brake handle. Also it looks like the thrust reversers were never deployed whether this was caused by the crew not deploying the thrust reversers or an inability to deploy the thrust reversers because of the confusion of the weight on wheels logic remains to be seen. Now looking at the last four minutes of data here we can see the evidence of a completely unstabilized approach calculated vertical speed 1,000 feet per minute this line right here is where it should be for the most part of the descent on in and here we see the aircraft climbing while on final approach in an effort to slow the aircraft down putting him well above glide slope and then that rate of descent increasing all the way up to 2,000 feet per minute well outside the parameters of a maximum of 1,000 feet per minute below 1,000 feet above the ground in an effort to recapture the glide slope and what's odd here too is as he's pitching up to slow the aircraft down it looks like he's adding power that just don't make no sense and here's the verbal description of that data the left and right main landing gear contact marks on runway three zero were found about 3,750 feet and 3,820 feet respectively from the threshold of the approach end of runway three zero and according to the FDR data the airplanes ground speed was about 160 knots at that location about 13 seconds after they crossed the threshold the landing gear weight on wheels parameter it intermittently switched between air and ground for about seven seconds that completely confuses the system and the Wow parameter switched to ground for the remainder of the recorded data when the airplane was had about 2,730 feet of runway remaining the FDR the flight data recorded data shows that the speed brakes remain stowed and the thrust reversers did not deploy during the landing and subsequent landing rollout wheel brakes were manually applied at a ground speed of 146 knots the brake pedals for wheel braking were subsequently released for about eight seconds at a ground speed about 120 knots and the throttle resolver angle for both engines increased to go around thrust values that's when the captain called for a go-around with about 930 feet of runway remaining about four seconds later he gave up and the throttle and they brought the throttles back to idle at a ground speed of 117 knots when wheel brakes were reapplied the airplane had about 415 feet of runway remaining and departed the end of the runway at a hundred and thirteen knots at 1350 the ASOS the automatic weather reporting station five minute automated data reported that the winds were 190 at 16 knots with gusts to 24 at 1553 a another report was generated winds 190 at 17 knots with gusts to 26 giving the crew a left quartering tail wind condition landing on runway 30 so remember on the first report when we reviewed the ATC audio there was a shift change in the local controllers the previous local controller was telling all the pilots coming in about the winds at Miami and he told the previous flight before the accident flight came on the frequency he told him that the winds were 190 at 19 gusting to 22 by the time our accident flight got on the frequency the controller had changed and that controller did not inform the pilot about the winds prior to landing even though according to their traffic control rulebook air traffic controllers apparently and this is news to me are supposed to tell the pilots of the winds for landing especially when there are specifically when there is a tailwind component to the winds regardless of whether the crew or whether the controller told the crew about the winds the captain was not listening to begin with the fo was talking about excessive speed through the entire approach the captain was nonverbal he was not responding to anything that the fo was saying it's unlikely that a reminder about the tailwind and quartering tail wind condition from the air traffic controller would have sunk into this crew because they were so grossly unstabilized on this approach it wouldn't have made a difference in fact this approach was so unstable unstabilized I'm afraid this accident is going to reach far beyond just this flight crew and their handling of this particular landing and dive deep into the operation and training and safety culture there at 21 air thank you so much for your support of this channel especially the folks that support this channel on patreon see you here