Amazon One overruns Miami runway 30 and kills five people on the ground

A Boeing 767-300 freighter operating for Amazon Air left the paved surface of Miami International Airport's Runway 30 at about 1:53 p.m. Eastern time on 6 September, crossed a perimeter road and struck vehicles. Five people on the ground died. Five others were hurt, including both pilots.

The aircraft was N1997A, named Amazon One. 21 Air of North Carolina flew it as Flight 7598 / CSB7598 from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan. The jet is 32 years old. It entered service with Belgium's Sobelair in 1994, flew passengers until 2015, and was converted to a Bedek Designed Special Freighter. Amazon unveiled this airframe in 2016 as the first 767 in Prime Air colours. Israel Aerospace Industries did the conversion in Tel Aviv. The registration nods at Amazon's 1997 public listing.

Miami-Dade Fire Chief Ray Jadallah said more than 60 units and about 200 personnel answered the call. Firefighters pulled people from vehicles the aircraft had hit. The two crew members were trapped in the cockpit and later taken out alive. Three of the injured were listed as critical. Officials had not named the dead by Monday.

The airport issued a ground stop. All runways and taxiways closed. Flights resumed in the evening, after the stop was lifted at 5 p.m. More than 160 flights were cancelled and nearly 325 delayed. Some traffic diverted to Orlando, more than 200 miles north. A fuel leak kept crews on the wreck into the afternoon. Miami is the third-busiest U.S. airport for freight.

Flightradar24 data showed the jet high on the approach to Runway 30, then a correction back onto the path. The runway is more than 9,000 feet long. The aircraft had flown through building thunderstorms. Former FAA inspector David Soucie told CNN the wind shifted on landing and gave the flight a tailwind, which would have added distance to the stop. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a go-team led by chair Jennifer Homendy. A first briefing was set for Monday in Miami. The FAA is running a parallel inquiry.

Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said an Amazon Air plane operated by 21 Air had an incident on landing and that the company was still gathering facts. 21 Air chief executive Keith Winters said the carrier was devastated and offered condolences to the families of those killed. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned of delays on the last day of the Labor Day weekend.

The wreck came to rest northwest of the field, near a parking area linked to an Amazon logistics site, nose gear collapsed, fuselage largely intact after the fire. That geometry will matter. Investigators will look at approach path, wind, braking, thrust reversers, the converted 767's weight and the road that sits beyond the runway end. NTSB board member Mary Schiavo said the maintenance history of a jet that had foreign owners, including a Russian company, would also be examined.

Cargo overruns at large U.S. airports are rare. When they happen, the people who die are often not on the aircraft. Flight 7598 carried two crew and no passengers. The five dead were on the road the jet crossed after it used up the concrete. Homendy's team will have to say whether weather, technique, the airplane or the layout of that northwest corner put those vehicles in the path.