Amazon Prime Air 767 leaves the Miami runway at 129 mph and kills five

A Boeing 767-300 flying for Amazon overran Runway 30 at Miami International Airport at 1.58 p.m. on 6 September, crossed a perimeter road, struck vehicles and caught fire. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said five people were dead by Sunday evening. Five more were hurt. Three of them were taken to a trauma centre in critical condition.

The aircraft was 21 Air Flight 7598, also filed as Prime Air 7598 and CSB7598. It had left Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the 767-300 freighter, built in 1994 and later converted under Israel Aerospace Industries' Bedek programme. Cirium records list the same build year. Flightradar24 put the speed at 112 knots, about 129 miles per hour, as the jet left the usable runway.

Miami-Dade Fire Chief Raied Jadallah said more than 200 firefighters and about 60 units answered the call. Crews pulled people from vehicles under the fuselage. He said the pilot and co-pilot were trapped in the cockpit for a time. A fuel leak was still being handled late on Sunday. Identities of the dead were not released.

Airport managers closed all four runways at once on a Labor Day weekend. Two runways reopened after about three hours. FlightAware counted at least 187 cancellations and 266 delays at Miami that afternoon. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned of further disruption on Monday, the last day of the holiday period.

Who flew the jet

21 Air is a North Carolina cargo carrier that began flying 767-300 freighters for Amazon in 2024. The company was founded in 2014. Chief executive Keith Winters said the airline was devastated and offered condolences. Amazon spokesman Kelly Nantel said the company would cooperate with investigators.

Amazon Air operates more than 250 flights a day. The 767 in Miami had flown passengers for other airlines from 1994 to 2015 before the freighter conversion. Aviation writers identified the airframe as N1997A, serial 27310. It came to rest off the north-west edge of the field, near a parking area tied to an Amazon logistics site, with the nose gear collapsed and the fuselage still largely in one piece despite the fire.

What investigators will look at

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a go-team under chair Jennifer Homendy. A first briefing was listed for Monday in Miami. The FAA is running a parallel inquiry. CNN reviewed air-traffic audio and said the crew did not declare an emergency before landing. Officials said on Sunday night that it was too early to name a cause.

The file that matters now is ordinary and technical. Investigators will reconstruct the approach, the winds, the runway condition, brake and thrust-reverser performance, the weight and balance of the converted 767, and the radio record. A student pilot at the scene, Rohan Ellis, told local reporters the vehicles under the jet were mangled.

Miami International is the main cargo and passenger gate for the Caribbean and Latin America. A runway excursion that leaves the airport boundary and hits a public road is rare at this field. The five deaths sit on that road, not only on the aircraft. Until Homendy's team prints a probable cause, the only hard numbers are the ones Cava and Jadallah read out on Sunday: five dead, five injured, a 32-year-old freighter, 129 miles per hour off the pavement, and a holiday airport that spent three hours shut.