Amazon Plane Crash Starts Debate About Requiring a Buffer for Runways

A technology involving crushable concrete has been credited with saving nearly 500 passenger lives by helping halt planes that overshot their landings. Over the past 30 years, an increasing number of airports in the United States have installed buffer areas of crushable concrete at the end of their runways to help stop planes that overshoot their landings before they can crash into anything. Miami International Airport, where an Amazon cargo jet overran the runway’s terminus on Sunday, killing five people and injuring five more, does not have such a buffer. Engineered materials arresting systems, referred to in the industry as EMAS, have been installed in at least 70 U.S. airports since the 1990s and are credited with successfully halting 26 airplanes that overshot runways, carrying a total of 497 passengers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration . In a statement, the F.A.A. said Miami International met the required length and width specifications for runway safety areas.

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