As an Amazon cargo plane began its descent under dark clouds over Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, it flew past the usual landing zone for Runway 30.
The Boeing 767-300, weighing more than 100 tons, remained airborne deep into the runway – its left rear gear continuing to bounce along the pavement, which rapidly disappeared ahead. By the time it reached the runway’s end, the jet was still barreling forward at 130 mph, tracking data from Flightradar24 showed.
On its third flight of the day, the aircraft hurtled across a small grassy patch, then through a chain-link fence with razor wire. Concrete barriers designed to keep cars out of the secure area crumbled as the jet headed straight for a four-lane road.
Five people died – all of whom were in the cleaning contractor’s van – and five others were injured, including the plane’s two pilots, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said Tuesday morning.
When the plane finally came to a fiery halt – about 1,300 feet past the paved surface near a parking lot where Tesla robotaxis were stationed – it had left a trail of wreckage. Among the debris were airbags, parts of the aircraft and passenger vehicles, and destroyed fencing, which had been catapulted throughout the area of the plane’s path.
Recovery crews retrieved the aircraft’s black boxes – the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder – and data from both was being analyzed at the NTSB lab in Washington, DC, Homendy told CNN Tuesday.
In a Tuesday post on X, the NTSB released images of the black boxes, which did not show any obvious signs of damage. But investigators will still need to determine if they preserved all the crucial data.
Investigators hope to be able to share the data from the recorders, including speed and flight control inputs, at a news conference Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, Homendy said.
A 32-person team will be on site for at least the next week, Homendy said, though the NTSB will not determine a probable cause for the crash on scene.
“Know that we are deeply, deeply committed to our duty, our responsibilities as an investigative agency to determine how this accident occurred, why it happened, with one goal in mind: safety,” Homendy said Monday. “And that’s to prevent it from happening again.”
The catastrophe left Miami’s airport operating with just two of its normal four runways on a busy Labor Day and raised questions about whether the facility needs better equipment to prevent an overshooting aircraft from leaving airport property.
Here’s what we know so far about the incident.
Spencer Deno, mayor of Virginia Gardens, which he said is the closest municipality to the crash scene, felt his house shake from the impact of the crash, he told CNN.
“Within a minute, I began hearing sirens. I grabbed my keys, and my wife and I drove toward Northwest 36th Street, approximately a block from our home,” Deno said. “When I turned onto 36th Street, I immediately saw officers responding from multiple directions. As soon as I reached Perimeter Road, I saw the tail section of the aircraft, and at that point I knew there had been an aviation-related crash.”
Francisco Diaz, a Boeing 747 captain who is president of the Captains Council, a Miami-based pilots’ organization, was helping lead a class at the Boeing training center at the time of the crash, he told CNN. He felt the building shake and ran outside. Another training instructor arrived moments later.
“He was shaking because he was almost hit by the airplane when the airplane came out of the airport into the street,” Diaz said.
How the crash unfolded
The cargo plane – operated by 21 Air, a flight vendor for Amazon Air – was coming into Miami from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It tried to land around 2 p.m. ET Sunday on a runway more than 9,000 feet long. But the jet rose above the normal path aircraft take on their approach to Runway 30 before dropping altitude to return into proper position, tracking data from Flightradar24 showed.
How the crash unfolded
The cargo plane – operated by 21 Air, a flight vendor for Amazon Air – was coming into Miami from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It tried to land around 2 p.m. ET Sunday on a runway more than 9,000 feet long. But the jet rose above the normal path aircraft take on their approach to Runway 30 before dropping altitude to return into proper position, tracking data from Flightradar24 showed.
