Amazon Air 767 leaves Miami runway at 112 knots and kills five on the road

A Boeing 767-300 freighter flying for Amazon Air overran Runway 30 at Miami International Airport at about 14:00 local time on 6 September, crossed the safety area and a perimeter fence, and struck vehicles on a service road. Five people died. Three were listed in critical condition. Two more were taken to hospital with lesser injuries. All of the dead were in a van and an SUV the aircraft hit, officials said, not in the cockpit.

The flight was 21 Air Flight 7598, registration N1997A, a 32-year-old 767-33A(ER) converted to freight in 2015. It had left Luis Muñoz Marín in San Juan two hours and eleven minutes earlier. That sector was the third of the day. The same airframe had already flown from Amazon's Cincinnati hub to Miami and on to Puerto Rico. 21 Air, based in North Carolina with an operations centre in Miami, is one of nine carriers that fly Amazon Air routes. Amazon Air runs more than 250 flights a day.

Flightradar24 and NTSB briefings sketched the approach. The jet rose above the normal path to Runway 30, then dropped back. Video from the ground shows it still airborne well down a runway more than 9,000 feet long. The left main gear did not sit fully on the concrete. Touchdown speed was reported near 185 miles an hour, high for that point on the strip. Tracking data put the aircraft at 112 knots, about 207 kilometres an hour, as it left the usable pavement. The last logged speed was 69 knots, still enough to carry the nose through the fence and onto the road.

What Homendy found on Monday

NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy walked the site on 7 September and called it utter devastation. The aircraft had struck navigational aids and then a 2012 Ford Econoline van owned by Professional Ocean Services, a contract cleaner. It came to rest near two semi-trucks beside a parking lot used by an Amazon warehouse. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue sent more than 60 units and about 200 people. They treated ten patients and transported five. Fuel on the ground is why two runways remain closed with no reopening time attached.

Investigators will reconstruct the landing point, the decision not to go around, brake and spoiler function, wind on Sunday afternoon, and the aircraft's technical state. Homendy is due to keep briefing as recorders are read. The pilots were pulled from the cockpit. Their condition was not settled in the first public remarks.

Runway overruns are a known class of accident. This one is distinct because the energy left in the airframe was spent on a public road used by warehouse and contract staff, not on an empty overrun strip. Amazon's name is on the tail. 21 Air held the certificate. The NTSB will separate those facts in the docket. For Miami-Dade the immediate problem is capacity: an airport running short two runways while a 767 sits where a fence used to be.