An Amazon cargo plane crashed off a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing at least five people as it collided with vehicles and caught fire, according to police.
After arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, the aircraft overran the runway at around 2 p.m. Miami-Dade County officials informed a news conference that five people were killed, three badly injured, and two more were hospitalized with less serious injuries.
Miami-Dade Rescue Fire Chief Ray Jadallah stated that some people were stuck inside vehicles. The pilot and copilot were also trapped inside the plane. Firefighters were still dealing with a fuel leak on the plane some hours after the crash, Jadallah said.
More than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units arrived to the incident, discovering the aircraft on fire while workers battled to extinguish the flames and assess the patients.
According to photographs from the area, the Prime Air plane came to a stop beside a road near two semitrucks. Despite the flames, the aircraft looked to be sitting on its belly and remained largely intact.
The flight was operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina. According to flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the 32-year-old Boeing 767 was initially designed to transport passengers and flew for different airlines for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015.
FlightAware, a website that analyzes airline disruptions, reported that approximately 250 planes were delayed at the airport late Sunday afternoon.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it will send a team to Miami, led by Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, to investigate.
“We’re working closely with local authorities and officials to figure out what happened,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel stated in a social media post. “Right now, our absolute priority is the safety, well-being, and care of everyone involved.”
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