At least five dead after Amazon cargo plane barreled off runway at Miami airport

MIAMI: An Amazon cargo plane barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing at least five individuals and injuring five others as it struck vehicles and was engulfed in flames, authorities stated.

Key points

• More than 160 flights were canceled and almost 325 delayed by late Sunday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.
• The National Transportation Safety Board remarked it was sending a team to Miami led by Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to investigate.
• Typically, the landing zone is within the first 3, 000 feet (914 meters) of a runway.
• According to Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, a 767 cargo aircraft would typically be staffed only by a pilot and copilot on domestic flights.
• The flight had been operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina.

Meanwhile, the aircraft overran the runway around 2 p.m. After arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and plowed throughout a road employed by warehouse workers and other businesses that surround the airport. Five individuals were killed, three critically injured and two others hospitalized with less severe injuries, Miami-Dade County office-holders informed a news conference.

Miami authorities stated Sunday afternoon that it was too shortly to say whether the residents who died were on board the plane or in the vehicles the plane hit.

Notably, the crash, which sent thick black smoke billowing into the sky, trapped the pilot and copilot in the cockpit and some occupants in cars, remarked Miami-Dade Rescue Fire Chief Ray Jadallah. The agency remarked crews additionally had to extricate a person who was trapped under a vehicle.

For context, the crash halted flights at the busy travel hub for much of the afternoon. Some 200 emergency personnel responded, finding the plane with heavy flames and smoke from a complex engine compartment fire, the department remarked. Firefighters applied foam from specialized airport firefighting units to extinguish the fire, and crews were still dealing with a fuel leak on the plane hours afterwards.

In practice, the Prime Air plane came to rest beside a roadway near two semi-trucks, images indicated. The aircraft appeared to be resting on its belly and was largely intact despite the fire.

For context, the cause had yet to be determined, and it was not clear if weather had played a role. Thunderstorms and wind gusts up to 30 mph (48 kph) were recorded in the area at the time, according to the National Weather Service.

Notably, the flight had been operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina. The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for a number of airlines for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

More than 160 flights were canceled and almost 325 delayed by late Sunday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions. Authorities from Orlando International Airport, more than 200 miles (320 km) north of Miami, stated some flights were diverted there.

Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board remarked it was sending a team to Miami led by Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to investigate.

Amazon remarked in an official note that it would cooperate with any investigation.

"We're heartbroken to learn that five people lost their lives in today's incident at Miami International Airport, " the firm stated. "Our deepest sympathies go out to the families, loved ones, and all those affected by this devastating loss."

Last year, a UPS plane crashed after losing its engine while accelerating down the runway at Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport. The crash killed all three pilots and 12 individuals on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured.

According to Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, a 767 cargo aircraft would typically be staffed only by a pilot and copilot on domestic flights. A third pilot would be continued for an international flight, and a long-haul international flight would require a fourth pilot.

Arroyo, a retired longtime United Airlines pilot, remarked he wants to know whether the Amazon plane landed in the touchdown zone of the runway, and if it was beyond that area why it didn't simply abort that landing and go around to line up for another attempt. Typically, the landing zone is within the first 3, 000 feet (914 meters) of a runway.

"Did the aircraft land within the required touchdown zone?" he asked. "If it did, what happened?"

Mary Schiavo, who is a pilot and former inspector general of the Transportation Department, remarked that video posted online of the landing indicates the Amazon plane floating above the runway for an extended period without flaring the nose upward to force the main landing gear onto the ground.

"It didn't touch down right away, and so it lost a lot of critical real estate by just continuing to float over the runway. It was literally still flying, " Schiavo remarked.

She observed the Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA states have been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide to safely stop planes that do go past the end of a runway. Those beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway have been credited by the FAA with helping save at least 497 lives aboard planes that overran runways.

For now, at least five dead after Amazon cargo plane barreled off runway at remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.