New details have come out about the final moments of Amazon Prime Air flight 7598. The National Transportation Safety Board released cockpit voice recordings. These tapes show the pilots were told they were flying too low and too fast.
Officials say one pilot made comments about the high speed, according to the New York Post. The other pilot did not respond consistently to these warnings. The NTSB noted this silence in their report. The autopilot disconnected just seconds later. An electronic alarm sounded four times saying the plane was too low. The plane overshot the runway and hit a van. Five people died in the fire that followed. Five others were injured, including the two pilots.
The widow of the man driving the van was the first to sue. Her name is Yaraisi Santiso Morejon. She filed the lawsuit in Miami-Dade County on Wednesday.
Her husband was Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo. He was 53 years old. He was driving a Ford Van with cleaning crew workers inside. The plane tore his vehicle apart on the tarmac. The lawsuit claims the crash was not an accident. It says the disaster was the "foreseeable and preventable result of multiple, concurrent failures." This exact phrase appears in the legal filing.
The suit points to the age of the plane. It was a 32-year-old aircraft. The lawsuit notes its braking and thrust systems are under active NTSB investigation. It also blames pilot error for failing to execute a mandatory go-around.
John Morgan from Morgan & Morgan spoke out for the family. Yaraisi and her family receive his expression of sympathy. He called the event a preventable tragedy. He stated that no one should lose a loved one this way. He promised that everyone who played a role will be held accountable. The lawsuit names Amazon and 21 Air as defendants.
The pilots are also named as defendants in the suit. According to the filing, the duo did not announce an emergency while the runway excursion occurred. It argues that each failure alone could cause death. The suit says together these failures were catastrophic. Airport employees and a driver on a public road made up the victims. They had every reason to believe they were safe. They were not. This story is about safety and accountability. It shows what happens when warnings are ignored. The recordings prove the pilots knew the risks.
The NTSB found that there was no consistent verbal response to the speed warnings. The plane landed too late to stop safely. Federal investigators are still looking into the cause. But the lawsuit is clear about who is to blame. It lists the tech giant and the aviation company. It also lists the pilots who flew the plane. The family wants justice for a man who was just doing his job. The crash happened around 2 p.m. on Sunday. The fire burst into the air immediately.
We must demand better safety standards for our skies. This disaster was not an unavoidable accident, but the result of choices made in the cockpit. Those choices cost five lives on a Sunday afternoon.