2026-09-08T15:57:00-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/miami-plane-crash-air-21-safety-record/
法律文件披露，上周日在迈阿密跑道外坠毁并造成5人死亡的亚马逊Prime Air波音767货机，运营方是一家北卡罗来纳州公司，该公司曾被前员工指控违反安全规定。
这家受亚马逊雇佣的货运航司21 Air，由休斯顿太空人队老板吉姆·克兰通过一家有限责任公司控股。哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS News）从记录和采访中获悉，该公司面临多名高管接连不断的安全投诉，这些员工称自己因提出安全担忧而被解雇。
“不幸的是，21 Air有着长期存在的安全问题历史，”拥有30多年飞行经验的飞行员卡尔·祖林说道，他曾提交法律诉状，指控自己因提出安全担忧而遭到21 Air管理层报复，管理层告诉他“情况不会改变”。
美国职业安全与健康管理局（OSHA）驳回了祖林关于遭到21 Air报复性解雇的投诉。他的上诉促成了2023年美国劳工部的庭审——一场由联邦法官主持的听证会，目前该案仍在审理中。
文件显示，祖林和其他前21 Air飞行员称，管理层压制安全报告、强迫机组人员在未得到充分休息的情况下执行飞行任务、安排无法用英语进行安全沟通的飞行员执飞，并让存在故障的飞机升空。
2021年，一名负责审查公司安全政策的前战斗机飞行员在写给21 Air老板克兰的辞职信中称，公司高管“口头上重视安全程序，实则完全不作为”。
前21 Air首席飞行员布鲁斯·约瑟夫在劳工部庭审中作证称，他“亲眼目睹多人多次被劝阻”不要在公司系统中记录安全担忧。
他在庭审证词中指控，公司时任安全主管告诉他，在与时任首席执行官迈克·门德斯沟通前“不要在安全管理软件中录入任何内容”。当被问及最终是否有报告提交时，他回答：“大多数都没有。”
“只有少数几次确实提交了，这仅仅是因为我坚持这么做，”约瑟夫在2024年3月对法官说道，“如果我提交了报告，就会招致迈克的怒火。”
门德斯作证称，约瑟夫“被21 Air解雇，离职时情况非常糟糕”，他认为这位前首席飞行员试图“编造”具有破坏性的指控。
这位前21 Air首席执行官否认存在任何报复行为，并表示自己遵守安全程序。“我的职责是确保我们运营一家安全的航司，不是去伤害任何人，也不是隐瞒任何事情，”他作证道。
当CBS News联系门德斯时，他拒绝进一步置评。
祖林的律师迈克尔·阿内洛告诉法官，另一名21 Air飞行员约翰尼·萨尔蒙森“被迫在休息时间不足的情况下执飞，这违反了适当的休息时长要求，涉及安全问题。停留时间过短”。
“管理层向飞行员施压，结果他遭到了报复，”阿内洛说道。
祖林的法律诉状称，当他质疑包含飞行员执飞前执勤时长在内的飞行计划安全证明是否准确时，有人告诉他“直接签字就行”。
这位飞行员作证称，2022年4月13日，他坐在21 Air一架波音767的 jump seat（乘务员折叠座椅）上，当时飞机从新泽西州纽瓦克起飞后出现机械故障，持续急剧加速，导致速度超过可能损坏机翼襟翼的阈值，这让他“为自己的安全感到担忧”。
他在庭审证词中称，事件发生后，机长戴维·诺格伦和副机长之间出现了“沟通故障”。
“我们没有进行情况汇报。没有任何讨论。就当这事没发生过，”祖林对法官说道。
诺格伦未回应置评请求。
祖林还作证提及2022年春季一架21 Air飞机从阿拉巴马州飞往特立尼达的航班，据称该飞机出现增压问题，被迫紧急转降波多黎各。
他称，时任21 Air机队经理、机长阿米尔·安诺希拉瓦尼“无法掌控操作”，并称“副机长们不得不共同介入，才让飞机安全着陆”。
安诺希拉瓦尼否认发生过此类事件，并告诉CBS News，他“从未与祖林有过接触”。“我不相信谎言，”他说道，“他被公司解雇后心怀怨恨。”
21 Air未回应CBS News的置评请求。该公司在其网站上发布声明称，正“全力配合”美国国家运输安全委员会（NTSB）的调查。
“我们向遇难者家属和挚爱之人致以最深切的哀悼，”声明说道。
亚马逊发言人告诉CBS News：“关于调查的具体情况，我们将听从NTSB的结论；对于这些与我们和该公司建立合作关系之前就存在的指控，我们将交由21 Air回应。”
此前一位发言人曾表示，公司对遇难事件“深感痛心”，并正在配合当局调查。
由21 Air作为Prime Air 7598号航班运营的波音767-300货机，于2026年9月6日在迈阿密国际机场冲出跑道后坠毁。伊娃·玛丽·乌斯卡泰吉 / 彭博社通过盖蒂图片社拍摄
在祖林的案件中作证的前21 Air飞行员托尼·布莱斯告诉CBS News，对他而言，周日迈阿密的坠机并非意外。
“我们很多前21 Air飞行员早就预料到会发生这样的事，”他说道，并举出“维护安全问题、首席飞行员办公室施加的压力，以及他们雇佣的飞行员素质”作为例证。
布莱斯称，公司会例行推迟维护，其老化的改装客机经常出现故障。
2022年从百慕大飞往新泽西州的一次航班上发生了一起引人注目的事件，他称自己所乘的21 Air飞机的雷达突然停止工作，当时他们正处于他40年飞行生涯中遭遇的最严重湍流中。
“我明确告知公司，在他们安装新雷达之前，我不会再驾驶这架飞机，”他说道。
“我们遇到过燃油泄漏问题、雷达故障和断路器问题，驾驶舱内还出现过烟雾，”祖林告诉CBS News，“公司还指导飞行员如何填写故障报告。”
担任21 Air工会主席的祖林称，长途飞行时飞行员只能靠自己解决睡眠问题。
“这些飞机上都没有像样的机组休息设施，”他说道，“我的工会副主席甚至买了睡袋放在飞机上，让飞行员在夜间长途飞行时能有个合理的方式休息一下。”
前战斗机飞行员唐·赫尔米格于2021年6月写了一封辞职信发给21 Air大股东吉姆·克兰，警告他公司存在安全问题。
“三个月来，我到处都能看到问题，”他写道，“在我看来，他们希望我什么都不说，但安全运营不该是这样的，只是‘口头上重视安全管理体系（SMS），实则完全不作为’。”
邮件附件中有七份文件，标题涉及公司的排班、培训、沟通、应急响应和企业文化。
“现在你已经知道我书面记录的所有核心问题。我认为你会聘用有能力的人，然后解决剩下的问题，”他写道。
美国国家运输安全委员会正在对周日的坠机事件展开调查，目前尚未确定事故原因。目前尚不清楚此前的安全问题是否与周日迈阿密的坠机事件有关。
失事航班的飞行员已确认身份：55岁的机长约瑟夫·卡罗尔和37岁的副机长海梅·费利佩·席尔瓦·莫利纳——两人在坠机后住院，目前已出院。
迈阿密-戴德县警长罗西·科尔德罗-斯图茨表示，坠机事件中遇难的5人是被飞机撞击的货车上的清洁人员。
CBS News获得的飞行跟踪数据显示，在距离迈阿密跑道4英里处，飞机突然改平，并停止下降约25秒。
这一偏差意味着飞机在接近机场时高度仍然过高。机组人员并未取消着陆，随后飞机以约两倍于正常速率的陡峭角度下降。
美国前交通部监察长玛丽·夏沃告诉CBS News，答案可能就在飞机的黑匣子中，包括驾驶舱录音和任何机械故障日志。
“驾驶舱里当时发生了什么？”她说道，“是在对抗大量湍流和风切变，还是机组资源管理缺失？”
21 Air, operator of plane in Miami crash, had prior safety complaints by former employees
2026-09-08T15:57:00-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/miami-plane-crash-air-21-safety-record/
The Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo plane that crashed off a Miami runway on Sunday, killing five people, was operated by a North Carolina company that has been accused by past employees of violating safety regulations, legal documents reveal.
The cargo airline hired by Amazon, 21 Air, is controlled by Houston Astros owner Jim Crane through an LLC. The company has faced a string of safety complaints from senior staff who claim they were fired for raising concerns, CBS News has learned from records and interviews.
“Unfortunately, 21 Air has a long established history of safety problems,” said Karl Seuring, a pilot with more than 30 years of experience who filed a legal complaint alleging that when he raised safety concerns he was told by a 21 Air manager, “It’s not going to change.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rejected Seuring’s complaint over his alleged retaliatory firing by 21 Air. His appeal led to a 2023 Department of Labor tribunal — a hearing in front of a federal judge — where the case is still pending.
Seuring and other former 21 Air pilots claimed managers suppressed safety reports, pushed crew to fly without proper rest, staffed pilots who could not communicate safely in English, and put faulty planes in the sky, documents show.
Executives were accused of “paying lip service” to safety procedures “then doing exactly nothing,” according to a resignation letter written by a former fighter pilot reviewing safety policy for the company and sent to 21 Air owner Crane in 2021.
Former 21 Air chief pilot Bruce Joseph testified in the Labor Department tribunal that he had “personal knowledge of people being discouraged” from logging safety concerns in the company system “on numerous occasions.”
He alleged in his tribunal testimony that the firm’s then-director of safety told him “don’t put anything” in the safety management software before speaking to the company’s then-CEO, Mike Mendez. Asked whether reports eventually got filed, he replied: “Most of it did not.”
“There were a couple of occasions where it actually did, only because I would press,” Joseph told the judge in March 2024. “If I put it in, I would have the wrath of Mike.”
Mendez testified that Joseph “was fired from 21 Air and left under very bad circumstances” and that he believed the former chief pilot was trying to “make up” damaging claims.
The former 21 Air CEO denied any retaliation and said he followed safety procedures. “My responsibility is to make sure we run a safe airline, not to hurt people and not to hide anything,” he testified.
Mendez declined to comment further when contacted by CBS News.
Seuring’s attorney, Michael Anello, told the judge that another 21 Air pilot, Johnny Salmonson, “was being pressured to fly in periods of time that were too short to comply with the proper amounts of rest, and that implicated safety. The layovers were too short.”
“The management was pushing the pilots, and the result was he was retaliated against,” Anello said.
When Seuring questioned whether flight plans with safety attestations — including how long pilots had been on duty before they started another flight — were accurate, he was told to “just sign it,” his legal complaint claimed.
The pilot testified that he was in the jump seat of a 21 Air Boeing 767 on April 13, 2022, when a mechanical problem made the plane continue sharply accelerating after takeoff from Newark, New Jersey, causing it to exceed speeds that could damage its wing flaps and leaving him “concerned for my own safety.”
He alleged in tribunal testimony that there was a “breakdown of communication” between the captain, David Norgren, and the first officer after the incident.
“We had no debrief. No discussion. Assume it didn’t happen,” Seuring told the judge.
Norgren did not respond to a request for comment.
Seuring also testified about an 21 Air plane flying from Alabama to Trinidad in the spring of 2022 that allegedly had a pressurization problem forcing it to make an emergency diversion to Puerto Rico.
He claimed the captain, then-21 Air fleet manager Amir Anoshiravani, had an “inability to take command of the operation,” saying “the first officers had to jointly intervene to get the airplane safely on the ground.”
Anoshiravani denied any such incident and told CBS News he had “never come in contact” with Seuring. “I don’t believe in lies,” he said. “He has anger at the company because he was fired.”
21 Air did not respond to CBS News’ requests for comment. The company has posted a statement on its website saying it is “cooperating fully” with the NTSB investigation.
“Our deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives,” the statement said.
An Amazon spokesperson told CBS News, “We’ll defer to the NTSB regarding the circumstances of their investigation and to 21 Air regarding these allegations that pre-date our relationship with the company.”
A spokesperson previously said the company was “heartbroken” at the deaths and that it is cooperating with authorities.
A Boeing 767-300, operated by 21 Air as Prime Air Flight 7598, crashed after overshooting the runway at Miami International Airport on Sept. 6, 2026. Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Retired 21 Air pilot Tony Bless, who testified in Seuring’s case, told CBS News that for him, Sunday’s crash in Miami did not come out of the blue.
“It’s something a lot of us ex-21 Air pilots have been anticipating for a while,” he said, citing “maintenance safety issues, the pressure out of the chief pilot’s office, and the quality of pilots they would hire.”
Bless claimed the company would routinely defer maintenance, and that things would often go wrong on its aging converted passenger planes.
In one notable incident on a flight from Bermuda to New Jersey in 2022, he claimed his 21 Air plane’s radar stopped working just as they navigated the worst turbulence of his 40-year career.
“I let the company know in no uncertain terms that I would not fly that plane again until they put a new radar in,” he said.
“We’ve had fuel leak issues. We’ve had radar problems and circuit breakers, smoke in the cockpit,” Seuring told CBS News. “Pilots were coached on how the write-ups should be done.”
Seuring, who served as president of the 21 Air union, said pilots had to fend for themselves when trying to get sleep on long flights.
“None of these airplanes had good crew rest on board,” he said. “My vice president of the union actually bought sleeping bags for airplanes to give the pilots a reasonable way to get some crew rest on long nighttime flights.”
Former fighter pilot Don Helmig wrote a resignation email to 21 Air majority owner Jim Crane in June 2021, warning him of safety issues at the company.
“After three months, everywhere I looked there are issues,” he wrote. “In my opinion, what they wished me to do is say nothing, but that is not how Safety is supposed to operate, by paying ‘lip service to SMS’ [Safety Management Systems] then doing exactly nothing.”
Attached to the email were seven documents with titles concerning scheduling, training, communications, emergency response and culture at the firm.
“Now you know every Core Issue I have placed on paper. I think you will surround yourself with competence and figure out the rest,” he wrote.
The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into Sunday’s crash, and there has been no determination yet about its cause. It is not known whether past safety issues had any connection to the Sunday incident in Miami.
The pilots have been identified as Captain Joseph Carroll, 55, and First Officer Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, 37 — both hospitalized after the crash but since released.
The five people killed in the crash were members of a cleaning crew in a van hit by the plane, Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said.
Flight tracking data obtained by CBS News shows that 4 miles out from the 9,360-foot-long Miami runway, the plane suddenly leveled out and stopped its descent for about 25 seconds.
The deviation meant the plane approached the airport while still too high. Instead of calling off the landing, it then took a steep decline around twice the normal rate.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, told CBS News the answer may lie in the plane’s black box, with cockpit audio recordings and logs of any mechanical failures.
“What was going on in that cockpit?” she said. “Fighting a bunch of turbulence and wind shifts, or lack of crew resource management?”
发表回复