Amazon pauses 21 Air after the Miami 767 overrun that killed five

Amazon said on 13 September that it is pausing work with 21 Air, the Miami cargo carrier that flew the Amazon-branded Boeing 767 that overran a runway at Miami International Airport on 6 September and killed five people on the ground.

Spokesperson Kelly Nantel told Reuters and USA Today: "After the tragic incident last weekend, we've spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances, and we've decided to pause our operations with 21 Air, the operator of Flight 7598. We'll continue working to support the investigation and everyone affected." Amazon will move the 21 Air routes onto other contractors. The list it has used includes Sun Country Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Air Transport International, ABX Air, ASL Airlines and Cargojet.

Flight 7598 was a Boeing 767-33A(ER) converted freighter, operating for 21 Air on the San Juan-Miami run. It touched down on runway 30 shortly before 14:00 local time, overran, hit a Ford Econoline van carrying seven workers from an airline cleaning company, broke through a fence, crossed Northwest 67th Avenue and struck a Toyota Corolla Cross. Five people on the ground died. Five others, including both pilots, were injured. The National Transportation Safety Board described a wreck path of about 1,300 feet beyond the pavement. Chair Jennifer Homendy called the scene "utter devastation." More than 160 flights were cancelled and nearly 325 delayed. The airport issued a ground stop and later a ground delay.

The flight data recorder, according to the NTSB's first public notes, shows the crew discussed aborting after touchdown. One pilot said they were "too fast" a little more than a minute before the wheels hit. Cause is not assigned. Speed on final, the decision to continue, and the state of the brakes and reversers are the obvious lines of inquiry.

21 Air, incorporated in North Carolina and based in Miami, specialises in cargo to and from Mexico. It said on Sunday that it is focused on the families, on the NTSB and on its partners, "like Amazon," and that it is confident in its safety policies, procedures and training.

The crash is the third serious Amazon-linked 767 accident. Amazon does not hold its own airline certificate for this network. It buys lift from contractors and paints the tails. That model keeps the retailer out of direct FAA air-carrier regulation and leaves the certificate, the training program and the maintenance organisation with firms such as 21 Air. When a contractor aircraft kills people on a public road at the airport boundary, the retailer can pause the contract. It cannot pause the NTSB docket.

For shippers the immediate effect is a reroute onto the other six names Amazon listed. For 21 Air the pause is a revenue hole on a fleet that was flying Prime Air metal. For the families of the five people in the van and the car, the corporate statement is a date stamp, not a finding. The finding will come from the recorder, the wreckage and the interview transcripts, months from now.

Amazon Air is a brand on metal that other airlines fly. 21 Air held the certificate for Flight 7598. The pause is a contract act, not an FAA grounding of the type. Other Prime Air contractors can legally take the same 767 routes tomorrow. That is the point of the model, and it is also the point critics will use: the retailer can change vendors faster than investigators can change findings.

The van and the car were not on the runway. They were on the airport boundary and the public road beyond the fence. Five of the dead were in those vehicles. That geography is why the NTSB file will include ground operations and perimeter design as well as approach speed. Nantel's statement does not discuss those items. It dates a commercial decision. The recorder and the wreckage will date the rest.