At least five people were killed and five others were injured in an Amazon Prime Air crash at Miami International Airport on Sunday, after a Boeing 767 cargo jet overran a runway, struck multiple vehicles, and caught fire, according to local authorities.
Videos from the airport showed flames and thick black smoke rising from the aircraft. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said more than 60 units and about 200 personnel responded and encountered heavy fire and smoke on arrival.
At a Sunday afternoon news conference, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said the aircraft’s engine was shut down, the fire was contained, and there was no continuing threat to the public. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have opened investigations.
An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday that the company was working with local authorities to determine what occurred.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Monday that the aircraft struck two vehicles: a Ford Econoline van operated by an airline contract cleaning company with seven people inside, and a Toyota Corolla Cross traveling on a nearby road outside the airport perimeter.
Cordero-Stutz said Tuesday the five fatalities were all occupants of the cleaning van. Of the five injured people, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said three were transported to a trauma center and two to area hospitals.
Homendy said a 32-person NTSB team is on scene and has recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
“There is fuel everywhere that will have to be remediated,” Homendy said, adding that recovery operations are ongoing and that recovery of victims is the priority.
Amazon Prime Air crash: what investigators have detailed
Homendy said Tuesday evening the 55-year-old captain had more than 7,000 flight hours and received a Boeing 767 type rating in May. The 37-year-old first officer had about 2,600 hours and received a Boeing 767 type rating in April 2025.
NTSB lead investigator Chihoon Shin described the final 30 seconds of recorded data before the overrun. Brakes were applied when the right main landing gear touched down, with the left gear touching down seconds later.
Brakes were then released about 15 seconds before the end of the recording, and the throttles were advanced to levels consistent with go-around thrust. Eleven seconds before the recording ended, the brakes were reapplied.
At the end of the recording, the aircraft was still moving at 65 knots, about 74 miles per hour.
Homendy said a readout of the cockpit voice recorder would be released Wednesday.
What we know about the plane and the crash so far
Flight data from the tracking service Flightradar24 showed the aircraft departed Puerto Rico at noon and arrived in Miami around 2 p.m. The plane exited the usable portion of the runway and breached the perimeter fence at about 112 knots, traveling roughly 1,300 feet beyond the pavement into an area where Tesla robotaxis were stationed.
Weather reports indicated thunderstorms and gusty winds at the time.
The jet was a Boeing 767-300 freighter, tail number N1997A. It was delivered as a passenger aircraft in 1994 to the former Belgian carrier Sobelair, later changed operators several times, then was converted to a freighter by a third party and returned to service in 2016.
It has been operated and maintained by multiple companies over three decades.
Boeing said it extended condolences to the families of those killed and to those injured, and that it is supporting the investigation led by the NTSB.
Homendy said the inquiry will examine whether an Engineered Materials Arresting System, or EMAS, might have mitigated the overrun. Miami International Airport does not have EMAS because its runways have FAA-standard safety areas that extend 1,000 feet beyond the ends.
Airports that cannot meet the standard, often due to surrounding obstacles, may install EMAS as an alternative.
FAA data indicate about 120 runway ends at roughly 70 U.S. airports have EMAS installed, and that the system has stopped 26 aircraft carrying nearly 500 people.
The aircraft came to rest at the northwest end of the airfield. The airport has partially reopened, though two of its four runways remained closed as of Tuesday.
The FAA warned passengers to expect delays of at least five hours.
Homendy described the scene as “devastating,” with fuel, skid marks, and debris scattered across the area. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said crews confronted a complex engine compartment fire and used specialized airport foam to extinguish it.
Teams also conducted search and rescue for the flight crew and assessed patients across the site.
According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue radio traffic archived on Broadcastify, responders worked to secure a steady water supply while attempting to control the blaze. A command dispatcher urged crews to enter the aircraft to shut down the engine, noting that pilots appeared to be out of the plane.
One responder reported a pilot was in a nearby parking lot and was assisting firefighters in shutting down the engine. The fire was largely out by 2:08 p.m.
This is the second fatal crash involving a 767 freighter within Amazon’s Prime Air network. In 2019, an Atlas Air 767 operating for Amazon crashed into Trinity Bay near Houston, killing all three people on board.
The NTSB determined that accident resulted from in-flight loss of control due to pilot error. The crash adds to a broader picture of industrial and logistics risk that has drawn investor attention, alongside stories such as Costco Next abruptly closes, ending digital marketplace.