Loss of braking cited in 2019 Florida plane incident

Investigators say the loss of braking power on a rain-soaked flooded runway caused a plane chartered by the Pentagon to slide into a Florida river in 2019

Investigators say a rain-soaked runway and the pilots' failure to anticipate the poor conditions caused a plane chartered by the Pentagon to slide into a Florida river two years ago. The National Transportation Safety Board said pilots of the Miami Air International plane landed too fast and waited too long to deploy speed-reducing panels as the Boeing 737 touched down at Jacksonville Naval Air Station on May 3, 2019. Investigators said that even without those mistakes, the plane would not have been able to stop on the ungrooved runway because of the amount of standing water. They said in a report released Wednesday that Miami Air failed to give pilots adequate guidance to evaluate braking conditions on wet runways. Proper estimates about the conditions “would have prohibited (the pilots) from attempting the landing," the investigators said.