A Boeing 767 freighter carrying cargo for Amazon barreled beyond a runway at Miami International Airport Sunday afternoon, struck vehicles outside the landing area and erupted in flames, killing at least five people and injuring five others as firefighters mounted a large-scale rescue operation and air traffic across South Florida was thrown into disruption.
21 Air Flight 7598 had just completed a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, when the 32-year-old Boeing 767-300 touched down in Miami shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time and failed to stop within the runway. The aircraft continued beyond the paved landing surface at considerable speed, entering an area occupied by vehicles before crashing and catching fire. Within minutes, columns of smoke were rising from the wreckage while airport operations stopped and Miami-Dade emergency units poured into the crash area.
The violence of the runway excursion extended beyond the aircraft itself. Vehicles in the freighter’s path were struck as the Boeing continued away from the runway, leaving people trapped both inside the aircraft and among the damaged vehicles. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue reported that the pilot and co-pilot were trapped in the cockpit following the crash, while rescuers also worked to reach people caught inside vehicles. Firefighters simultaneously confronted flames, damaged aircraft components and leaking aviation fuel around an accident scene stretching beyond the point where the freighter left the runway.
By Sunday evening, authorities had confirmed at least five deaths and five injuries. Three of the injured were reported in critical condition. The identities of those killed had not been released, and authorities had not completed a public accounting of whether the fatalities were members of the flight crew, occupants of vehicles on the ground or a combination of both.
The scale of the response reflected the hazards confronting rescue crews. More than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units and approximately 200 personnel were deployed as firefighters attacked the burning aircraft and rescue teams conducted extrications. An active fuel leak complicated operations for hours, requiring crews to control the fire while protecting rescuers and survivors working or trapped around the wreckage.
Flight-tracking information provided investigators with an early measurement of the aircraft’s movement after landing. The freighter was traveling approximately 112 knots, or about 129 mph, as it departed the usable runway area, according to flight data reported Sunday. Investigators now face the more complicated task of determining where the aircraft touched down, how rapidly it decelerated, whether its braking and reverse-thrust systems functioned as designed and how much runway remained as the landing progressed.
Thunderstorms and gusty winds were present around Miami during the afternoon, adding another element federal investigators will examine alongside the aircraft itself. Wind gusts in the area approached 30 mph around the period of the crash. Neither weather nor any other condition had been identified by federal authorities Sunday night as the cause of the accident, and no evidence had been released establishing a mechanical failure or improper action by the crew.
The freighter was operated by 21 Air, a North Carolina cargo carrier flying the aircraft within Amazon’s air transportation network. Although the Boeing carried Amazon Prime Air branding and was moving freight for the company, 21 Air was responsible for operating Flight 7598. The aircraft had begun its commercial life as a passenger jet in 1994 before eventually being converted for cargo service, a common second phase of operation for wide-body aircraft used by freight carriers.
Federal investigators arriving in Miami will have a substantial physical and electronic record to examine. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team led by Chair Jennifer Homendy, while the Federal Aviation Administration opened its own investigation into the accident. The aircraft’s flight-data recorder and cockpit-voice recorder will be among the most important sources of evidence as investigators reconstruct the approach, touchdown and runway excursion second by second.
The physical condition of the Boeing will also be documented before major portions of the wreckage are disturbed. Investigators are expected to examine its wheels, tires, brakes, landing gear, engines and thrust reversers while comparing mechanical evidence against recorded cockpit inputs and flight data. Maintenance history, cargo weight, aircraft balance, approach speed, touchdown location, crew training, duty schedules, air traffic control communications and runway conditions will become part of the investigative record.
Sunday’s crash brought Miami International Airport to an immediate standstill. All runways and taxiways were closed while emergency crews responded, forcing inbound aircraft to divert and preventing scheduled departures from leaving. More than 160 flights were canceled and hundreds of others delayed as airlines repositioned aircraft and crews throughout the afternoon. Some incoming flights were sent to Orlando and other airports while Miami remained unavailable.
Two of the airport’s four runways had returned to service by Sunday evening, allowing limited traffic to resume while emergency and investigative operations continued around the wreckage. The interruption carried consequences well beyond Miami because the airport serves as one of the nation’s principal aviation gateways to Latin America and the Caribbean and handles a substantial volume of international freight alongside its passenger operations.
The crash also brings federal investigators back to a Boeing 767 freighter operating within Amazon’s contracted air network seven years after another fatal accident involving the aircraft type. Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashed into Trinity Bay near Houston in February 2019 while transporting Amazon cargo from Miami, killing all three people aboard. That accident was separately investigated and resolved by the NTSB, and federal authorities have presented no evidence connecting it with Sunday’s crash.
Amazon has developed an extensive air freight network using aircraft operated by contracted carriers to move packages among distribution centers and major transportation hubs. Miami has been part of that system since 2018, when Amazon expanded cargo operations at the airport using Boeing 767-300 freighters to connect South Florida with its broader logistics network.
For investigators, the decisive evidence will come from the final portion of Flight 7598 rather than the appearance of the wreckage after impact. The aircraft reached Miami, completed its approach and made contact with the runway, but somewhere between touchdown and the runway boundary its landing sequence failed to produce sufficient stopping distance. Determining why will require investigators to reconcile the aircraft’s recorded speed and cockpit inputs with braking performance, reverse thrust, runway conditions, weather and the precise location where the Boeing first touched pavement.
Those answers were not available Sunday night. Five people were dead, others remained hospitalized, a Boeing 767 sat badly damaged beyond a Miami International Airport runway, and federal investigators were beginning the painstaking reconstruction of a landing that turned into one of the nation’s deadliest commercial aviation accidents of 2026.