Amazon Cargo Jet Crash at Miami International Airport
An Amazon Air cargo plane crashed at Miami International Airport, killing five people and injuring five others.
The Amazon Air cargo plane, operated by 21 Air, crashed on Sunday, leaving five people dead and five seriously injured. According to the source, the plane overran a runway during landing, struck multiple vehicles, and caught on fire. Two of Miami’s four runways remain closed Monday morning after the incident.
Crash Details
The plane, a Boeing 767-300 medium widebody freighter, was flying from San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it overran the runway around 2 p.m. It was going 130 mph when it left the usable portion of the runway. Pilots did not declare an emergency before landing. The diagonal runway the plane landed on is more than 9,000 feet long.
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team of experts to investigate the runway excursion. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined, but thunderstorms and wind gusts up to 30 mph were recorded in the area at the time.
Response and Aftermath
More than 200 emergency personnel responded to the accident and extinguished the blaze, but were still dealing with a fuel leak hours later. One person was trapped under one of the involved vehicles and had to be extricated by specialized technical rescue personnel. NW 67th Avenue between NW 25th Street and NW 36th Street on the northwest end of the airport remains closed, according to the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office. Local news accounts said some flights were diverted to Orlando International Airport.
Company Response
21 Air CEO Keith Winters said in a statement that the company is devastated by the accident and is cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and local authorities. Amazon also released a statement, saying it is heartbroken to learn that five people lost their lives in the incident. 21 Air is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, but its main operating base is at Miami International Airport. It is owned by Jime Crane, a longtime logistics executive who owns Crane Worldwide Logistics and the Houston Astros professional baseball team. The airline began flying for Amazon in November 2024. It currently operates nine freighter aircraft. The 767-300 that crashed was built in 1994 and flew for passenger airlines before being converted in 2015 to carry cargo on the main deck. It was the first plane Amazon placed in its fleet in 2016 when it launched a private cargo airline to expedite the delivery of e-commerce packages around the country. Amazon has a fleet of more than 100 cargo jets, but it is not an airline in the strictest sense. The company doesn’t have an air operating certificate or its own pilots and instead outsources flying to contractors such as 21 Air. Aviation experts who saw video of the landing and spoke to the Associated Press questioned why the pilot didn’t abort the landing and go around another time if he or she was having trouble settling the plane on the runway.
