Federal investigators are expected to closely examine the landing phase of an Amazon cargo jet that crashed at Miami International Airport, killing at least five people.
Video of Sunday’s landing appears to show the Boeing 767 remaining airborne far down the runway before touching down.
Aviation experts said investigators will determine exactly where the aircraft landed, whether it touched down beyond the normal landing zone, and why the pilots did not abort the landing.
Investigators will also examine the plane's speed and braking, weather and wind conditions, the aircraft's mechanical condition, and other factors that could have contributed to the deadly overrun.
The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team led by Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to Miami, where she is expected to give the agency's first briefing on the investigation Monday.
Authorities are also working to recover the five people who died in the accident. Prime Air Flight 7598 overran the airport's diagonal runway shortly before 2 pm and struck multiple vehicles on the ground, officials said during a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
The plane, which departed from San Juan, Puerto Rico, was a 32-year-old Boeing 767-300 freighter that had operated as a passenger jet for various airlines from 1994 to 2015, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates US civil aviation accidents, has sent a team to investigate. The investigation is still ongoing.
Amazon is still gathering details about what happened, company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. "We're working closely with local authorities and officials to understand exactly what happened," Nantel said in a statement. "Right now, our absolute priority is the safety, well-being, and care of everyone involved."
Boeing and 21 Air said they would support the government investigations into the crash.
Sunday's incident is not the first time an Amazon Prime Air plane has been involved in a fatal crash. In February 2019, Atlas Air Flight 3591, a Boeing 767-300 freighter operating on behalf of Amazon Prime Air from Miami to Houston, entered a rapid descent and crashed into Trinity Bay, Texas. All three people on board were killed.
Miami, a major hub for trade with Latin America, is the third-busiest freight airport in the United States after Anchorage in Alaska and Louisville in Kentucky, according to the Airports Council International.
(With the agency inputs from PTI and Reuters)