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BOSTON (WHDH) - A former director of the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) said the Miami International Aiport lacks one key safety feature that may have made a difference in Sunday’s crash involving an Amazon cargo jet that killed five people and left several others injured.
The safety feature, the “Engineered Material Arresting System,” or EMAS, involves placing blocks of lightweight material at the end of a runway. If a plane overruns the runway, the material is crushed, and the plane’s tires sink into it, slowing the plane down.
Tom Kinton, the former CEO of Massport, said the systems are especially useful at airports like Boston’s Logan Airport, where runway length is limited.
“Logan, for instance, those runways are right up against the water,” Kinton said. “It would prevent a catastrophic breakup of the aircraft because prior to these there was riffraff, stone walls, if you will, at the end of Logan’s runways. Now they are gentle slopes made of this material that would ease the aircraft through the overrun into these blocks, slow it down, prevent the aircraft from breaking up.”
This safety feature has been in place at the end of some runways at Logan Aiport for more than a decade.
Last week, the airport restarted construction to expand this system, work that started last fall. Once it’s complete, Logan Airport will have three runways with this safety system. The work may cause delays and flight disruptions over the next few months, but Massport said the expansion of the system is critical.
“They are extremely beneficial and a tremendous safety benefit to any airport,” Kinton said.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the system has not been used in Boston, but at some of the other 70 airports where the feature is installed, it has stopped 26 planes carrying close to 500 passengers.
Last September, the system saved two flights from potentially deadly crashes – one at a Chicago airport and another at an airport in Boca Raton, Florida.
Miami International Airport does not have EMAS installed on any of its runways.
Kinton said that while not required, it may have made a difference during Sunday’s crash.
“Given that they had the 1000 ft, if they coupled that with some EMAS, that would help slow it down, and the rest of the 1000 feet may stop it and keep it on the airport property,” Kinton said.
A spokesperson for Miami International Airport told 7NEWS that the FAA inspects the airport annually, and it meets the safety requirements.
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