NTSB report: Amazon Prime cargo jet came in high and fast before Miami crash

A Boeing 767-33A operating as 21 Air Flight 7598 was traveling roughly 140 mph about 15 seconds before it crashed into a work van at Miami International Airport, according to the National Transportation Safety Board's first report on the Sept. 6 accident. The aircraft, hauling cargo on contract for Amazon Prime, came in high and fast over Runway 30 before hitting the van carrying an airport cleaning crew and a Toyota Corolla SUV. Five people were killed and five others were seriously injured.

According to the NTSB, the right landing gear was on the runway but the pilots struggled to get the left wheels to grip the surface. Seven seconds before impact, the roughly 200,000-pound jet was still moving down the runway at close to 110 mph. Flight-recorder data showed the pilots attempted to lift off again in the final seconds to abort the landing and try again, but the runway remaining was insufficient, and investigators found no indication that speed brakes or thrust reversers had been deployed.

The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office identified the dead as Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Narajo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierk Reyes Quevedo, 47. The five were among seven people in the passenger van struck by the jet. Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz called the accident 'an incredibly tragic incident,' adding that people leave home for work or to see family without thinking such a thing is possible.

The crash has drawn scrutiny to 21 Air, the North Carolina-based cargo operator that flew the Amazon contract. Former pilots had previously raised safety complaints: Karl Seuring accused the company of not giving pilots enough time off between flights and violating take-off speed protocols, according to March 2024 sworn statements in an ongoing Department of Labor dispute cited by the Miami Herald. Don Helmig, a retired airline and military pilot, described unresolved safety issues in a June 12, 2021, resignation email to majority owner Jim Crane, who also owns the Houston Astros.

Amazon said it suspended its relationship with 21 Air after the crash. 'After the tragic incident last weekend, we've spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances,' Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a Sept. 13 statement. Multiple lawsuits have since been filed against 21 Air, Amazon and the pilots, including wrongful-death actions brought by the children of Aleman and Pineda, the widow of van driver Rodriguez Naranjo, and a suit from survivor Roosevelt Sebastian Perdomo Torres, who was ejected from the van and suffered a broken leg, ankle and hand.