One of the pilots of an Amazon cargo plane that overshot a Miami runway and killed five people was shaking and in distress after emerging from the plane’s cockpit, a witness told CBS News.
Abraham Altamar said the fiery crash at Miami International Airport was “surreal” and “scary” to witness. Altamar, who had been working at a nearby building, was on FaceTime with his wife when the pilot approached him.
“He was, like, shaking and, and a little injured in his forehead and his hand,” Altamar said. “I was like, ‘Hey, you want me to call 911?’ He’s like, ‘No, we already called them.'”
The pilot then said he needed to call his wife, Altamar said. Altamar gave him his phone.
“He was just, like, telling her that he was fine, ‘Just tell my mom that I was in the accident, but I’m already out of the plane, that I’m good,'” Altamar said. His wife, Alexis Altamar, noted that the pilot was upset and said, “My career is over.”
The pilots were identified Tuesday as Joseph Carroll, 55, and Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, 37. It wasn’t immediately clear which pilot Altamar spoke with. Both pilots were treated for injuries and have been released, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.
CBS News has determined the names of the pilots using a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office news release, LinkedIn profiles, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot database. LinkedIn profiles list Carroll as a captain with 21 Air, the carrier that operated the flight, and Silva as a 21 Air first officer.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images 
The NTSB is investigating the incident. Investigators arrived on the scene Monday. Officials say the plane struck navigation equipment before hitting a cleaning crew van with seven people inside. The plane then went through a fence, struck a Toyota SUV driving outside the airport, and barreled through another fence before coming to a stop near a fleet of parked Tesla robotaxis.
All five of those killed were in the two struck vehicles.
New cellphone video appears to show one crew member jumping out of the plane after the crash. The NTSB has yet to interview the pilot and co-pilot of the plane. The plane’s two black boxes, which record voice and flight data, have been recovered and sent to the NTSB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., for analysis. Aircraft operator 21 Air and Amazon say they are cooperating fully with the investigation.
Homendy described the crash scene as “devastating.”
“You can see, on the paved surface, tire marks that continues through the grass,” Homendy said in a news conference Monday. “There’s debris everywhere.”
Officials said that part of their investigation will look into whether installing a safety bed at the end of a runway to help stop a plane should be more common at airports nationwide. The safety feature, known as an Engineered Materials Arresting System, or EMAS, is used at more than 70 airports, according to the FAA. It is made of light, crushable material that allows an aircraft’s tires to sink in, slowing the plane down and bringing it to a safe stop if it overruns the runway.
EMAS is generally used at airports that do not have a full 1,000-foot safety area at the end of a runway. The runway that the plane overran does have that 1,000-foot safety area, Miami International Airport told CBS Miami.
