Add The New York Post on Google The widow of the airport driver whose vehicle was “torn apart” during the deadly Amazon plane crash filed the first lawsuit on Wednesday, alleging “multiple, concurrent failures” led to her husband’s death.
Yaraisi Santiso Morejon is suing the tech giant and the 21 Air aviation company that operated the doomed Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598 that killed five, including her husband, Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo.
“The victims were airport workers and a motorist on a public road—people who had every reason to believe they were safe. They were not,” the lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade County’s 11th Judicial Circuit Court and obtained by The Post, read.
Naranjo, 53, was driving a Ford Van with several cleaning crew workers employed by Professional Ocean Service Corp. inside when the cargo plane overran Runway 30 at Miami International Airport and crashed into the vehicle.
“Our hearts go out to Yaraisi and her family, as well as all those who were impacted by what we believe was a preventable tragedy,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said Wednesday.
“No one should lose their loved one this way, and the filing of this lawsuit is just the beginning of our fight to secure justice and accountability for Mr. Naranjo’s death. Everyone who played a role in this horrific crash will be held accountable.”
The van was being driven within the airport’s property when the plane overran the runway.
“This disaster was not an unavoidable accident. It was the foreseeable and preventable result of multiple, concurrent failures,” the suit said.
Morejon and her attorneys claimed there was a systemic failure by Amazon, 21 Air and the pilots that led to the deadly crash.
Factors including operation of a 32-year-old aircraft “whose braking, thrust reverser, and spoiler systems are under active NTSB investigation,” inadequate training and pilot error for attempting “a high-speed, tailwind-affected landing while failing to execute a mandatory go-around.”
The suit also lists pilots Joseph Carroll and Jamie Felipe Silva Molina as defendants, stating the pair failed to declare an emergency during the “runway excursion.”
“Each of these failures, standing alone, was sufficient to cause death. Together, they were catastrophic,” the suit says.
The plane was going 167 knots (approximately 192 mph) with only 5,000 feet of paved surface remaining, 4,000 feet past the intended touchdown area on the runway.
“We allege that this was not a freak accident, but a foreseeable and preventable disaster caused by negligence,” Morgan & Morgan attorney Mike Morgan said. “What we’ve already uncovered points to a series of failures by the people flying the plane, the companies that put it in the air and the systems that were supposed to prevent this exact kind of tragedy. Yaraisi deserves answers and justice. We intend to get her both.”
Morejon is seeking damages in excess of $50,000 from a jury trial.
Five other people were injured in the crash, with both pilots escaping the wreckage alive.
A distressed Captain Silva Molina stressed that his “career is over,” after the crash, witness Abraham Altamar told CBS News.
“Just tell my mom that I was in the accident, but I’m already out of the plane, that I’m good,” the pilot said on the phone, according to the airport staffer.
