Amazon cargo jet overruns Miami runway, killing five on the ground

A Boeing 767-300 freighter flying for Amazon Air left the paved surface of Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, crossed a perimeter road and struck vehicles beyond the fence. Five people on the ground died. Five more people were injured, three of them critically.

The aircraft was 21 Air Flight 7598, also carried as Prime Air 7598. It had left Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and landed on Runway 30 at about 1.53 p.m. local time. Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz later put the time of the crash at 1.58 p.m. Flight tracking data show a flight of about 2 hours and 11 minutes.

Airport spokesman Greg Chin identified the service as Prime Air Flight 7598. Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said an Amazon Air plane operated by 21 Air had an incident while attempting to land. Keith Winters, chief executive of 21 Air, said the North Carolina cargo airline was devastated and offered condolences to the families of those who died.

What left the airport boundary

The jet is registered N1997A, a Boeing 767-33AER converted to a freighter, manufacturer serial number 27310. It is 32 years old and powered by two General Electric CF6-80C2B6F engines. 21 Air began flying 767-300 freighters for Amazon in 2024. The San Juan-Miami pairing is a daily Amazon cargo routing.

Video and photographs from the northwest side of the field show the Amazon-liveried aircraft off the paved surface, with heavy black smoke. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said units found the aircraft on fire after it had struck multiple vehicles. Firefighters used foam on an engine-compartment fire. Hazardous-materials crews shut down an engine and worked a fuel leak. One person trapped under a vehicle had to be cut free by a technical rescue team.

Fire Chief Ray Jadallah said about 60 apparatus and just under 200 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel answered the call. He told reporters that ten people were involved in all: five dead, three taken to a trauma centre in critical condition, and two taken to a local hospital. Wikipedia and later official briefings established that both pilots survived with injuries and that the five dead were on the ground. The plane carried no passengers.

The wreckage came to rest after the jet crossed NW 67th Avenue and stopped in a parking area and field outside the airport fence. All runways and taxiways were closed by 3 p.m. A ground stop followed. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned of delays and cancellations on the last day of the Labor Day weekend.

Who is investigating

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the overrun and said it would investigate. The National Transportation Safety Board posted that it had launched a go-team for a runway excursion involving a Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft arriving from San Juan. Amazon said it would cooperate.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called 6 September an incredibly difficult day for Miami-Dade County. She stated the facts in public: Prime Air Flight 7598 overran the runway, five people lost their lives, five others were injured.

Contract flying of this kind is now ordinary in US air cargo. Amazon Air does not hold its own airline certificate for this routing. 21 Air, founded in 2014, flies the metal. That split matters for the record. The NTSB will look at landing performance, runway remaining, weight, weather, brake and spoiler function, and how a 767 on a scheduled cargo arrival left a major international airport and reached a public road.

Miami International sits tight against roads and commercial lots on its northwest corner. Runway 30 is the diagonal strip. Once an arriving jet fails to stop, the distance to the fence is short. Sunday showed what that geometry costs when the aircraft does not stay on the pavement.

By Monday morning the death toll stood at five, with the injured still in hospital and the field working back toward normal operations under an open federal inquiry. The names of the dead had not been released in the first official briefings. The question the go-team has to answer is narrower and colder: why a serviceable 767 on a routine San Juan-Miami cargo run used all of Runway 30 and then kept going.