The airplane that overshot a runway in Miami on Sunday, killing five people and injuring five more, was a Boeing 767 operated for Amazon by 21 Air, a cargo airline.
Here’s what to know about those companies and the plane.
Amazon Air
Amazon Air, the company’s cargo airline, is a key part of its worldwide shipping operation. Started in 2015, the airline leases planes to transport packages between dozens of airports in Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa.
Amazon describes the airline as a “customer-obsessed” operation that runs more than 250 flights a day and can help shippers quickly move goods around the world. Amazon relies on the airline for its own shipping and sells excess capacity to other commercial customers.
Amazon Air contracts out its cargo flying, with about 105 planes actively operated for the company, according to Cirium, an aviation data company. 21 Air, which operated the plane that crashed Sunday, runs eight planes for Amazon. Air Transport International operates about 40 of those planes, and Sun Country Airlines, a budget carrier that also flies passengers, operates 22.
Amazon Air had one prior fatal crash. In February 2019, an Atlas Air cargo plane flying from Miami to Houston crashed into Texas’s Trinity Bay marshland, killing all three people on board. A federal investigation attributed that crash to pilot error.
21 Air
21 Air is an all-cargo airline that was founded in North Carolina in 2014, according to its website. In addition to Amazon Air, 21 Air also flies for DHL Aviation, according to Cirium.
The airline flies mostly out of Miami and Cincinnati and describes its Boeing 767-300 aircraft, the plane type involved in the crash, as being able to carry 55 tons while delivering “excellent fuel efficiency.”
The Boeing 767
The plane that crashed was built in 1994, according to Cirium records.
Because commercial aircraft are inspected often and subject to frequent maintenance, it is not uncommon for planes to be used for decades, particularly by cargo airlines. The first 767 entered service in 1982, for United Airlines. There are nearly 900 still in active use today, mostly to carry cargo. About 200 are used mainly to carry passengers and a smaller number are used for military purposes.
While commercial plane crashes are rare, so-called runway excursions, in which an aircraft overshoots or otherwise leaves the bounds of a runway, are the most common form of accident reported each year, according to the International Air Transport Association, a global aviation trade association.
The causes of such incidents vary widely and can include wet or icy weather, unstable landings, runway contamination, pilot error, brake failures or other mechanical problems. It was not clear what caused Sunday’s accident.
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