Official: Pilots in Florida crash switched runways

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Pilots of a chartered jet that ran into a river at a Florida military base made a last-minute change to the runway where they would make a landing, a federal investigator said Sunday.

The pilots of the Miami Air International plane asked air traffic controllers for the change shortly before landing at Naval Air Station Jacksonville Friday night.

The 9,000-foot-long runway where the Boeing 737 landed was essentially limited to 7,800 feet, since there was a wire barrier set up to recover Navy aircraft in instances they couldn’t land on a carrier during training, said Bruce Landsberg, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“We don’t know what they were thinking or why they made that choice,” Landsberg said at a news conference. “That will be one of the things we look to find out.”

Landsberg didn’t elaborate on the significance of the runway change, but he said it would be a focus of investigation.

NTSB investigators said they hope a cockpit voice recorder helps them answer that question, but they have been unable to recover it yet since the part of the plane where it’s located is still underwater in the St. Johns River. Investigators also plan to interview the pilots, Landsberg said.

Investigators have retrieved the flight data recorder.

Landsberg said the plane recently had been in maintenance, and logs showed a left-hand thrust reverser that was inoperative.

Thrust reversers are used to divert thrust from the engine, but they typically are not used when calculating a plane’s performance, Landsberg said.

There were no serious injuries on the flight from a military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, though almost two dozen of the 143 passengers and crew members sought medical attention for minor injuries.

Capt. Michael Connor, the base’s commanding officer, said all passengers had left the base Sunday.

Investigators are still deciding whether to move the plane off the base.