Five people died Sunday when an Amazon cargo plane ran off the end of a runway at Miami International Airport, crossed a road and hit several vehicles. The Boeing 767-300, operated by 21 Air, crashed just before 14:00 local time. Five others were seriously injured.
It is not yet clear whether the dead were aboard the plane, on the ground, or both. The National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency leading the investigation, has people at the site and said it would brief reporters Monday afternoon.
More than 200 firefighters responded after the plane burst into flames. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a Sunday evening news conference that rescue crews reached the scene within “seconds”. Fire Chief Raied Jadallah said three of the five injured were in critical condition. Several people had been trapped inside or under vehicles, and crews had to cut them out.
What investigators are looking at
The plane had flown in from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. FlightRadar24 data shows it was travelling at 112 knots (129mph) when it left the “useable runway”. It stopped near a car park serving an Amazon warehouse and other businesses. The tracking site also noted light thunderstorms and gusting winds over Miami at the time.
Experts who spoke to the Associated Press said video of the landing will put one question to investigators first: did the aircraft touch down inside its designated zone on the runway, and if it did, what happened next?
The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded all flights at the airport.
Witnesses and statements
Grace Mercado was in a vehicle nearby. “The plane was up in smoke,” she told CBS News. “It was just, it was like something from a movie. It was crazy.” Beth Tilman saw a black cloud over the crash site and smelled something sharp. “It wasn’t trees burning. It wasn’t mangroves burning,” she told the New York Times. “It was some other odour that I, honestly, had never smelled before.”
21 Air, a charter company based in North Carolina, said it was “devastated by the accident involving one of our aircraft in Miami”. Chief executive Keith Winters said its immediate priorities were supporting those affected and assisting the authorities. Kelly Nantel, Amazon’s director of corporate global media relations, said the company was “heartbroken” and that the plane “was attempting to land when this incident occurred”. Both companies said they would cooperate with the investigation.
Travel disruption
The crash came on Labor Day weekend. The Transportation Security Administration had expected 2.3 million people to fly on Sunday alone, and 17 million to pass through US airports in the week before the Monday holiday.
At Miami, passengers told the BBC they were frustrated by the lack of information from officials. Flights were cancelled or delayed and queues built at airline counters. One traveller, Faroush, said the earliest flight he could find to San Francisco left Tuesday morning. “I’ll probably have to find a hotel and spend more time in Miami,” he said.
Sources
- Investigators begin work on why cargo plane overran Miami runway
- Investigators begin work on why cargo plane overran Miami runway
