Amazon cargo jet ran off a Miami runway and killed people in cars - critical summary review

A plane that fails to stop in time is not the accident most people picture. Nothing falls out of the sky: the aircraft is on the ground, still fast, and everything depends on what lies past the end of the pavement. In Miami on Sunday, September 6, what lay past it was a fence, a four-lane avenue and two vehicles with people inside. Both pilots of the Amazon cargo jet survived. The five people who died were on the ground.

The most common accident in aviation

Runway excursions, when an aircraft leaves the paved surface meant for landing or takeoff, are the most common type of accident involving aircraft anywhere in the world, according to data from IATA, the airline industry's international association. Because of that, runways are not supposed to end at a cliff edge: Miami International's runways, like those at many other airports, have a designated safety area that works as a protection zone if an aircraft overshoots, as CNN reported.

So the severity of an overrun is decided less by the moment the wheels leave the asphalt than by the geography beyond it. That is the backdrop against which the Miami accident arrives, and it is why five people who never boarded a plane are the ones who died.

From a floating landing to a fire beside a parking lot

The aircraft was a Boeing 767-300 flying as flight 7598 for Amazon Prime Air, Amazon's air transport arm, operated by the cargo airline 21 Air. It was arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and touched down around 2pm local time on Runway 30, which is more than 2,700 metres long.

A video posted on social media, described by CNN, shows the jet appearing to hover, going well past the usual touchdown area, and one of the rear landing gears still bouncing along the pavement. According to Flightradar24 tracking data, it was still doing close to 130 miles per hour, about 209 km/h, when it reached the end of the runway.

From there it crossed a strip of grass, a barbed-wire fence and the concrete barriers installed to keep cars out of the restricted airside area. The aircraft, weighing more than 100 tonnes, hit vehicles as it crossed the avenue and slid to a halt in flames just short of a car park. "The plane is on fire," a first responder shouted on an emergency radio channel. "Stand by." Fire broke out around the right engine. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue sent more than 60 units and roughly 200 firefighters, and crews were still working to contain a fuel leak hours later. Rescuers used a ladder to reach the cockpit through a window: the pilot and co-pilot were trapped inside.

Who died: the victims were on the ground

Five people were killed and five injured, three of them taken to a trauma centre in serious condition, according to Miami-Dade authorities. On Monday, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said the aircraft ran about 396 metres (1,300 feet) past the paved surface and struck two vehicles: an Econoline van inside the airport area carrying seven workers from Professional Ocean Service Corp, a company that provides cleaning services to airlines, and a Toyota SUV driving on Northwest 67th Avenue, beyond the perimeter fence.

Homendy did not give details about who died, but said the victims were people traveling in the two vehicles hit on the ground. G1 reported that the victims were aboard the van of seven cleaning workers and the second vehicle. The two people on the plane, the captain and the first officer, survived and had not yet been interviewed. Asked to describe the scene, Homendy answered: "Total devastation." "You can see tyre marks on the paved runway extending across the grass. There is debris everywhere. The Econoline van is in pieces."

What the data suggests about the cause

No official cause has been established. What tracking data and video already show, in the reconstruction published by CNN, is a landing that departed from the standard in several ways.

Flightradar24 data indicate the aircraft rose above the normal approach path for Runway 30 before losing altitude and returning to position, and that it flew through a thunderstorm that was forming as it neared the airport, one of several in the area at the time. During the landing, the wind direction changed suddenly, according to David Soucie, a CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector. The shift would have given the flight a tailwind, which can make it harder to slow down. "You gain speed instead of losing speed at that moment," Soucie said.

The jet also touched down almost parallel to the ground rather than performing the standard flare, the manoeuvre in which the nose lifts at the last moment so the rear gear touches first. Recordings of communications between the crew and the tower show the pilots reported no problem with the aircraft and declared no emergency before landing.

The airframe was built in 1994, making it 32 years old, and was converted from a passenger plane into a freighter in 2015. It was on its third flight of the day, having flown Cincinnati to Miami and Miami to San Juan earlier on Sunday.

The black boxes and a 32-person investigation

On Monday, Homendy said investigators had recovered both recorders. "We were able to recover the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder," she told reporters, adding that the devices were being taken to the agency's headquarters in Washington for analysis.

Homendy is leading a team of 32 investigators at the airport, and she said the probable cause would not be determined until the end of the investigation. Evidence was still being collected and logged, and crews were still removing aviation fuel from the site and the aircraft. "We want to interview the crew," she said. "As we speak, recovery work continues." Priority, she added, was returning families to their loved ones. The FAA is also investigating.

Amazon said it was working closely with local authorities. "We are deeply shaken to learn that five people lost their lives," spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement. 21 Air said its immediate priorities were supporting those affected and assisting the authorities.

The safety system Miami does not have

While the cause is still under investigation, aviation experts told CNN that Miami International lacks a safety feature that could have kept the aircraft from leaving airport property and reaching a public road.

The Engineered Material Arresting System, or EMAS, is a set of blocks installed at the end of a runway. They look solid, but the lightweight material is designed to be crushed under the weight of an aircraft. "When the plane goes off the end of the runway, the wheels sink into this material. The plane stops," said Mary Schiavo, a CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation. "An airport surrounded by such a densely populated area needs a safety barrier system at the end of these runways to prevent this from happening again." CNN said it had asked the FAA and the airport for comment.

The cost at one of the biggest US cargo hubs

The airport halted all flights immediately after the accident, then resumed them on Sunday night. The disruption did not end there. Two of the airport's four runways stayed closed for most of Monday, including Runway 30 and Runway 26L to its north, until 7pm local time, according to an FAA notice to pilots. The FAA said arrivals were facing average delays of two and a half hours. By Monday, FlightAware counted roughly 90 cancellations and around 400 delays at the airport.

That matters beyond passengers. Miami is one of the main cargo gateways in the United States and the hub of trade with Latin America, handling nearly 3.5 million tonnes last year, according to DW. Amazon Air operates more than 250 flights a day to move customer packages, and 21 Air, based in North Carolina with an operations hub in Miami, is one of nine carriers flying for it.

What to do with this information

The single most useful thing to follow is the NTSB. Homendy has already said the probable cause will not be named until the investigation closes, and she gave no date, so treat any early explanation circulating as speculation. Three specific threads are worth watching: what the two recorders show about speed and configuration on final approach, what the crew says when they are interviewed, since they told the tower nothing was wrong, and whether the weather at the moment of touchdown, the handling of the landing or the 32-year-old aircraft ends up carrying the weight of the finding.

The second thread is the runway end itself. The EMAS argument was raised by aviation experts talking to CNN, not by the airport or the regulator, and CNN said it had asked both for comment. Whether the FAA or Miami-Dade responds, and whether other airports ringed by populated areas are drawn into the same question, is the part of this story that could change something physical rather than produce a document.

And there is what remains unknown. Homendy declined to comment on the condition of the two pilots. Authorities have not publicly identified the dead. For anyone flying through Miami in the near term, the practical advice from the airport and from the US transportation secretary during the shutdown still applies: check directly with the airline before going to the terminal, because delays and cancellations were running into the hundreds a full day after a plane came to rest short of a car park.