bmks270 said:

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Matt Walsh has the scoop.

Seems this carrier has systemic cultural issues and low hiring standards, and low qualifications standards.

Pilots online saying how horrible and incompetent the 21air pilots are.

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But wait a second - guys on Page 1 were telling me I was full of it for pointing out that Amazon used the lowest cost carrier.

They all use/want the lowest cost carrier. But Amazon has a unique system.

UPS and FedEx have many operators they contract with as well. But they also have divisions to control those operators. FedEx to a much greater extent. They have a very tight grip on many of their contracted carriers.

Amazon initially established Prime Air, by contracting with a carrier who still had a license/ticket, but was a shell of it's former self. The initial carrier used to be a large DHL/Airborne contractor, but when DHL stopped their domestic operations, the carrier shrunk to almost nothing. That said, they still had a ticket, established operations, quality programs, etc, etc. All they needed to ramp up Ops, was money...which Amazon has.

Amazon used that opportunity to establish Prime Air...which is nothing more than badging on their contractors aircraft. But other than contracting their services, they have little control over the operations (which also means little liability).

But I know several operators who run routes for Amazon/Prime, who also run routes for FedEx/UPS. It's not simply either/or.

Quote:

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Pilots online saying how horrible and incompetent the 21air pilots are.

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^To be taken with a grain of salt. There isnt one organization in America that doesnt have a community of online malcontents who make noise.

sts7049 said:

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these guys have juan just shaking his head

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This guy as well. He produced this video before the CVR transcript, but...

Sid Farkas said:

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Quote:

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Pilots online saying how horrible and incompetent the 21air pilots are.

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^To be taken with a grain of salt. There isnt one organization in America that doesnt have a community of online malcontents who make noise.

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Sir, this is Texags.

nortex97 said:

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Going after Atlas (the lessor I think) because they are the big money involved directly. There's nothing dangerous about a 76F at 32 years old if properly maintained, and no indication it wasn't, other than the reputation of the airline operating it to avoid corrosion maintenance. Boeing even contracts with Atlas to fly 787 wings/parts around.

Amazon loses $ BILLIONS a year on fulfillment (Prime shipping) and to minimize that loss, they award air cargo contracts to the lowest bidder.

21Air can operate 767s cheaply because, well… they have low pay and low hiring standards.
⏬

— Steve Giordano (@SteveNomadic) September 10, 2026

AMZN should clean up their cargo operations, imho.

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I disagree here that the fault is on AMZN. If they contract for air services those air services are responsible for what they provide. If the rate they are getting paid isn't high enough for safe operations, then that is on them for accepting work at such a rate.

amazon has some culpability by producing the system that drives this low cost need. but they are in no way responsible for the crash. that's on 21air and potentially the FAA.

Culpability vs. responsibility is some word smithing there, to me a distinction without a difference. AMZN probably has no legal liability for this one but I do think they are a horrific outfit in terms of how they contract out air services.

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, I know, but it (Prime Air, namely) is not a great operation.

Other context: Three serious accidents (two fatal crashes—one in 2019 plus this new one; plus one YVR runway overrun in 2024) in roughly half a million flights is hard to dismiss. If Amazon were actually drawn from an accident process with a rate of 1.32/million (IATA-reported…

— Blake Scholl 🛫 (@bscholl) September 9, 2026

If one were to say they had no culpability/responsibility, it would be akin to excusing Ecohealth/Fauci for Fauci flu.

I think there's an issue at play that's bigger than Amazon, and it's probably not unique to aviation.

The worst professionals will always exist in every industry, and there will always be niche locations where they tend to accumulate. Raising the minimum standards will or could weed some of them out, but there will always be that program or school or test prep that will become known as "the place" to go to get you prepped to pass the test when you've had trouble.

Marginal/poor flight schools, bad cops, crummy accountants, lousy lawyers... For the industries represented by every poster on this thread i net at could ALL name a company or service area that serves the very bottom.

BQ78 said:

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Too many problems with this one just to be a bad day. Sounds like a very avoidable tragedy where the captain either got tunnel vision or as others have mentioned sleep deprived. Or maybe just not yet comfortable with the instant aircraft. Unquestionably he was behind the aircraft the entire approach.

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I wonder if the one not responding was having a medical issue.

Rest assured I am not making an excuse for pilot(s) errors.

JFABNRGR said:

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BQ78 said:

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Too many problems with this one just to be a bad day. Sounds like a very avoidable tragedy where the captain either got tunnel vision or as others have mentioned sleep deprived. Or maybe just not yet comfortable with the instant aircraft. Unquestionably he was behind the aircraft the entire approach.

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I wonder if the one not responding was having a medical issue.

Rest assured I am not making an excuse for pilot(s) errors.

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Given I'm pretty sure there was video of both exiting the aircraft following the crash and one of them was reported by an eyewitness to have said, "I just ended my career,' I doubt either of them were suffering from any acute medical condition. That would not rule out a chronic poor decision making or lack of critical thinking and problem solving.

Edit... video below indicates the co-Pilot had to be extricated with help of FD.

Flying for Money (Flying for a Paycheck) has his update out now that teh CVR came out. He's speculating something that I was wondering.

The flight crew did (may not have) not perform the landing checklist. I have been wondering why the GPWS would give a "Too Low, Terrain" warning if the airplane was properly configured for landing. He said that warning suggests to him the aircraft was indeed NOT configured correctly and that the speedbrakes were in fact likely NOT armed. This too had me perplexed because when that right wheel did finally settle onto the runway they should have deployed but they didn't. That suggests the checklist was never done at all, or they just pencil whipped it without actually confirming the actions.

The approach was unstable at 1,000 ft which I've now heard multiple YouTuber's state is the minimum final altitude to continue if not stabilized, and by all accounts the descent just deteriorated and got worse as it went on.

They didn't select landing flaps until 50 feet so they almost certainly didn't complete the landing checklist since they couldn't until then, seconds before they touched down. The GPWS would have been (and was) yelling at them until they were in a landing configuration. They may also have never armed the speedbrakes/spoilers but that's not apparent

55 yr old Captain's background was US Army rotary wing???

GAC06 said:

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They didn't select landing flaps until 50 feet so they almost certainly didn't complete the landing checklist since they couldn't until then, seconds before they touched down. The GPWS would have been (and was) yelling at them until they were in a landing configuration. They may also have never armed the speedbrakes/spoilers but that's not apparent

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It looks like the airplane logic never went from flight to on the ground because the pilot didn't get the weight on the real wheels (both rear wheels tilted until 3/4ers down the runway way) in which case thrust reversers and spoilers would not have deployed. Blancolirio had a great video on this a couple days ago.

Gordo14 said:

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GAC06 said:

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They didn't select landing flaps until 50 feet so they almost certainly didn't complete the landing checklist since they couldn't until then, seconds before they touched down. The GPWS would have been (and was) yelling at them until they were in a landing configuration. They may also have never armed the speedbrakes/spoilers but that's not apparent

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It looks like the airplane logic never went from flight to on the ground because the pilot didn't get the weight on the real wheels (both rear wheels tilted until 3/4ers down the runway way) in which case thrust reversers and spoilers would not have deployed. Blancolirio had a great video on this a couple days ago.

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Spoilers should have deployed automatically once the wheel tilt indicators sensed the rear trucks were on the ground. Yes, that is correct. However the indications are that they never did. This indicates the spoilers were never "armed" which requires moving their actuator lever to the "armed" position so they will deploy automatically. In addition they can be deployed manually (GAC or someone correct me) by moving the lever further past the armed detent into a manual (or other name) position.

Reverse thrust is always activated manually after touchdown as it requires physical manipulation of the throttle levers. It cannot be done via any automatic systems onboard the aircraft.

GAC06 and I were saying that it's apparent the required checklist for landing the plane were never completed. Remember pilots don't tie their shoes or take a piss without a checklist. This is evident because things that are on that checklist were still being done as the plane was crossing the runway threshold. The callout for "Flaps 30" should have been completed with the plane on a stabilized approach, on speed and on glideslope, before they were 1,000 ft based on airport barometric altitude. At 1,000ft they were getting high to the GS because they were too fast for Flaps 20!

Woah!!!