Five people died and five more were injured Sunday when a Boeing 767 cargo aircraft operating under Amazon’s Prime Air branding ran off the runway while landing at Miami International Airport, striking several vehicles before coming to rest in a field beside the airfield.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the aircraft, identified as 21 Air Flight 7598, overran the runway at roughly 2 p.m. local time after arriving from Luis Muñoz MarÃn International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said the plane went off Runway 30 before colliding with multiple vehicles on the ground. Preliminary tracking data from Flightradar24 indicated the aircraft was traveling at close to 130 mph when it left the runway.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Raied Jadallah said three of the injured were in critical condition and taken to a trauma center, while two others were hospitalized with less severe injuries; fire officials said roughly 200 personnel responded, and one person had to be freed from beneath a vehicle struck by the plane. Crews also worked to extinguish a fire that broke out on impact and to contain a fuel leak.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel confirmed the flight was operated on the company’s behalf by 21 Air, a North Carolina-based cargo carrier, and said the company was heartbroken over the loss of life. 21 Air’s chief executive, Keith Winters, said the airline was cooperating fully with federal investigators.
The aircraft, a 32-year-old former passenger jet converted to cargo use in 2015, was largely intact after the crash despite the fire, according to images from the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was dispatching a team to investigate, and the airport briefly suspended all runway operations before reopening two of its four runways later Sunday. Roughly 250 flights were delayed as a result of the disruption, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
