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The plane was traveling roughly 180 miles per hour when it touched down awkwardly on the runway, flight data recordings showed. The pilots tried briefly to take off again before the plane hurtled roughly 1300 feet past the end of the runway and smashed into two vehicles on the ground.

Five people were killed, all of them workers for a company that cleans planes. Five more were injured.

"It was a very, very unstable approach from the beginning, from the get go," Aimer told NPR. In that situation, he says, pilots are trained to go around and attempt the landing again. "These fellows should have gone around long before even getting close to that airport."

Former 21 Air employees raised concerns about the safety culture at the airline long before the Miami crash. Karl Seuring, a veteran pilot and the former president of 21 Air's pilot union, said he was not surprised by that accident.

"We anticipated and we feared it. And we knew the day would come, and there wasn't anything we could do," he said.

Investigators continue work to determine what caused the crash of an Amazon cargo plane at Miami International Airport on September 7, 2026.
Investigators continue work on Sept. 7, 2026, to determine what caused the crash of an Amazon cargo plane at Miami International Airport.

Seuring says he was fired in 2022 for raising concerns about the 21 Air's safety standards after being told repeatedly that "it's not going to change," according to the federal whistleblower lawsuit he filed. His lawyer, Mike Anello, shared documents from the case with NPR.

"Everywhere I looked there are issues," wrote Don Helmig, the departing safety director, in an email to the company's owner in 2021, in which he accused the company's leaders of paying "lip service" to safety. "In my opinion, what they wished me to do is say nothing, but that is not how Safety is supposed to operate."

JayP wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2026 10:49 pm I have extensive experience in this sector. While I always wait for final NTSB reports, which can take up to a year, I do think there are several concerns here. Amazon has a poor history with their deliberate use, and constant changing, of sub contractors for cargo. There seems little question the a/c started to do a go around procedure thenaborted that to try to land. I cannot speak to the accusations of poor safety at the company but I would not be surprised if that turns out to be true. Lots and lots of smoke here.