Miami plane crash: New web cam video emerges as pregnant woman among seven hurt

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were expected to arrive at Miami International Airport on Wednesday to begin their probe of a Red Air flight after its landing gear collapsed on the runway and caused it to crash.

“NTSB is sending a team of investigators to Miami following today’s gear collapse and runway excursion of an MD-82 jetliner at Miami International Airport,” the investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accidents wrote on Tuesday night, just a few hours after the 5.40pm incident that sent RED Air Flight 203 into smoke.

Johanna Chisholm reports:

The RED Air flight that crashed in Miami on Tuesday was previously owned by the Caracas, Venezuela-based LASER Airlines, reports said.

The McDonnell Douglas aircraft was a line of planes manufactured up until in 1999, by which time the company had ceased to be the leading US aerospace manufacturer.

Delta Airlines stopped flying McDonnell Douglas planes in June 2020, though the carrier at that point retained a fleet of aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas in the ‘90s, it was reported.

The webcam video showing the RED Air crash showed three fire service units approaching the crashed aircraft and black smoke from the fire billowed into the sky.

The edited 2 minutes and 12 seconds long video, which was shared with CBS News, ended with a fire fighting unit standing beside the wreckage of Red Air Flight 203, with that side blackened from the crash.

As Namita Singh reports, the plane remains on the runway almost a day after the incident, which sent more than a hundred passengers fleeing from the smoking airliner’s cabin:

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said in an update of its investigation into the Red Air flight crash that there were 130 passengers and 10 crewmembers on board the aircraft.

The flight experienced “gear collapse and runway excursion accident” followed by a fire, the NTSB said on Wednesday.

The agency said despite a fire engulfing part of the plane, investigators were able to retrieve the voice recorder and the flight data recorder.

“Once the airplane is defueled and NTSB investigators have completed the site documentation, the airplane will to be moved to another location for further examination,” the agency added.

RED Air is a young airline that launched in the Dominican Republic in late 2021 — looking to challenge other budget airlines between the US and the Caribbean.

Traveling Lifestyle reported on Tuesday that the company had just added 20 weekly flights to the US as parts of its 2022 growth strategy, as Abe Asher reported:

Passengers on the RED Air flight which crash landed in Miami on Tuesday after flying from the Dominican Republic were seen running away from the aircraft after it burst into flames.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said the fire under was brought under control following the crash and mitigated fuel spillage.

Paolo Delgado, who shared his cellphone footage with CBS Austin’s John-Carlos Estrada, can be seen fleeing the aircraft after it crashed with 130 passengers and 10 crew members on Tuesday,

A plume of black smoke can be seen wafting from the plane as Mr Delgado and others – some of whom escaped with their cabin luggage – run.

Watch the full clip below:

A passenger who was onboard RED Air flight when it crashed on Tuesday described a “frightening” scene to local news outlet the Miami Herald.

“People were very frightened,” said Mauricio Davis, who was returning from Venezuela and grabbed a connecting flight in the Dominican Republic to Miami.

“People were grabbing the seats to keep from spinning around,” he added, noting that when the 126 passengers travelling onboard realised there was fire, they collectively began screaming with panic.

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue department said its foam trucks were deployed on Tuesday to bring the blaze under control after RED Air flight 203 crash-landed.

Foam is typically used for airport fires became it works well on combustible materials like oil and fuel, which was burring after the crash.