Amazon cargo jet stopped 1,300 feet past a Miami runway after hitting a van and a car

The Amazon cargo jet that overran Miami International Airport on 6 September stopped about 1,300 feet past the paved end of Runway 30 after hitting airport equipment, a cleaning-crew van and a car on a public road. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy gave that account on 7 September and called the ground utter devastation. Five people died. Five were hurt. Three of the injured were listed as critical. The two pilots walked away and had not yet been interviewed.

The aircraft was a 1994 Boeing 767-33A, 32 years old, wearing Amazon colours and operating as Prime Air Flight 7598 for contractor 21 Air LLC. Homendy said it had already flown Cincinnati to Miami and Miami to San Juan that Sunday before the return to Miami at 1:53 p.m. Eastern. Tracking data showed the jet high on the approach, then dropping back toward the glideslope. The runway is more than 9,000 feet long. The jet still used all of it and kept going.

First it struck navigational aids beyond the threshold. Then it hit a white Ford Econoline van owned by Professional Ocean Service Corp., a contract cleaner for airlines, with seven people inside. Homendy said the van was torn apart. Five of those seven died. The jet then broke the perimeter fence and hit a Toyota Corolla Cross on the road outside. All of the dead were in those two vehicles. The aircraft also reached a second fence line near an area where robotaxis were parked. Fuel spilled along the path. Homendy said she walked the full 1,300 feet. Debris was everywhere.

Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder on Monday and sent both to the NTSB laboratory. A team of 32 is on site. Homendy said they still could not enter the aircraft because recovery work came first. The investigation and access to the aircraft as well as evidence can wait while the recovery operation goes forward, she said. That is most important, reuniting families with their loved ones. She offered no probable cause. That finding waits until the inquiry ends.

Part of the file will look at the ground beyond the runway. Some airports install engineered material designed to collapse under an overrunning jet and slow it down. Homendy said the team will examine what, if anything, sat past Runway 30. Two runways remained closed while fuel was pumped out and wreckage was mapped. Miami-Dade officials had already reported five dead and five injured on Sunday. The NTSB briefing put names to the vehicles and distances to the fence.

21 Air is a Miami-based cargo carrier and one of nine flight vendors Amazon Air uses. Amazon Air moves more than 250 flights a day. The airframe had previously flown for Vietnam Airlines, Air Europa, Kenya Airways and Nordwind before conversion to a freighter. Homendy did not rest the case on livery. She rested it on the recorded path, the two vehicles, and the 1,300 feet of pavement and dirt.

Sunday was Labor Day weekend. Dark cloud sat over the field on approach. Homendy did not say weather caused the overrun. She said the recorders are in Washington and the crew interviews have not started. Local hospitals held three critical patients. Families of the cleaning crew were still being matched to the van. The airport kept operating on reduced runways. That is the working picture 24 hours after the stop: a 32-year-old 767 that used up a long runway, a van that should never have been in its path after the pavement ended, and a public road that was.

Amazon's name is on the tail. 21 Air holds the operating certificate. Boeing built the jet in 1994. The NTSB owns the wreckage file. None of those facts yet explains why the aircraft was still moving at fence speed after 9,000 feet of concrete. The boxes will. Until they are read, the only numbers that are firm are five dead, five injured, 1,300 feet past the runway, and a cleaning contractor whose van was where a jet should not have been.