A pilot of the Amazon cargo plane that careened off Miami runway warned it was coming in too fast

2026, September 9

United States

This is a particularly disturbing development in the Miami Amazon cargo-plane crash, because the newly released cockpit information suggests that the crew had multiple opportunities to abandon the landing before the Boeing 767 ran off the runway.

✈️ What happened?

The aircraft was a 32-year-old Boeing 767 cargo jet, operated by 21 Air on behalf of Amazon. It was landing at Miami International Airport on Sunday after a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

It touched down far too far along the 9,360-foot (2,853 m) runway and then overran the runway by about 1,300 feet (396 m). It struck a van carrying workers and then an SUV before catching fire.

Five people in the van were killed and five others were injured. Both pilots survived.

⚠️ The most important revelation

According to the NTSB's review of the cockpit voice recorder, one pilot repeatedly warned the other that they were coming in too fast.

The warnings began almost two minutes before the crash and continued during the approach and after touchdown. Yet the other pilot apparently did not provide a consistent verbal response.

There were also automated aircraft warnings, including:

"Sink rate" warnings

"Too low terrain" warnings

indications that the aircraft was not in a stable approach

The NTSB data shows the aircraft descended 400 feet in only about four seconds at one point.

🛬 Why didn't they simply go around?

This is likely to become one of the central questions of the investigation.

In aviation, pilots are trained to go around when an approach becomes unstable. That means abandoning the landing, applying power and climbing away to make another approach.

According to aviation experts cited by AP, the pilots had plenty of time to do that after the excessive speed was first identified. They could also have used additional aerodynamic braking or reduced thrust.

Even more remarkably, after touchdown the aircraft appears to have briefly entered a go-around attempt: the brakes were disengaged and the throttles were advanced, as though the crew was trying to take off again. But this was abandoned after only about four seconds.

🌬️ Weather may have made the situation worse

There were strong and gusty winds associated with storms around Miami.

A tailwind can be particularly dangerous during landing because it increases the aircraft's groundspeed and reduces the runway available for stopping.

The aircraft also appears to have touched down nearly halfway down the runway, leaving dramatically less stopping distance.

The bigger issue: cockpit teamwork

This may ultimately turn into a crew-resource-management investigation rather than simply a "pilot was too fast" investigation.

The crucial question is:

Why did one pilot recognise the problem, but the cockpit team fail to act decisively on it?

Aviation procedures are specifically designed so that the second pilot can challenge the pilot flying when something isn't right. The NTSB will therefore be looking closely at who was flying, who was monitoring, their experience and training, and why the warnings didn't result in a go-around.

And importantly, the NTSB has not yet determined the probable cause. Weather, aircraft configuration, maintenance, pilot training, airline procedures and runway safety measures are all still being examined.

One other interesting factor is that the aircraft was originally a passenger 767 and was converted to a freighter in 2015. It had therefore been flying for roughly 32 years when the crash occurred.

This is a case where the flight-data recorder and cockpit recorder could be exceptionally valuable: the aircraft didn't simply suddenly fail—the recordings appear to show a sequence of warnings and decisions leading up to the accident.