Feds detail plans for investigating cargo plane crash in Miami

… Mary Schiavo, who is a pilot and former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, said video posted online shows the Amazon plane floating above the runway for an extended period without flaring the nose upward to force the main landing gear onto the ground. It wasn’t raining at the time, but dark storm clouds loomed and strong winds were reported. Schiavo said that if the plane had a tail wind, that could have contributed to it floating further down the runway. “A tail wind would certainly add to your troubles if you’ve already given up a good chunk of the runway by not touching down and landing right away,” Schiavo said. The Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA says have been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide to safely stop planes that do go past the end of a runway. Those beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway have been credited by the FAA with helping save at least 497 lives aboard planes that overran runways. The crash halted flights at the busy travel hub for much of the afternoon. Some 200 emergency personnel responded, finding the plane with heavy flames and smoke from a complex engine compartment fire, the department said. Firefighters used foam from specialized airport firefighting units to extinguish the fire, and crews were still dealing with a fuel leak on the plane hours later. …