In the moments before an Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami International Airport on Sunday, automatic warning signals were blaring in the cockpit. One pilot warned the other that the plane was coming in too fast, according to details of the cockpit voice recordings released this week by the National Transportation Safety Board.

But the flight crew pushed ahead with the landing anyway.

“In my 60 years of flying, I’ve never seen such a terrible performance from a crew,” said Ross Aimer, the CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, and a retired airline captain who worked in the industry for more than 40 years.

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.”

The cargo plane crash in Miami is raising concerns about the safety culture at 21 Air, the little-known carrier that operated the flight for Amazon. Former pilots were sounding alarms about the company’s safety practices long before Sunday’s accident, though the company disputes their claims.

It’s also prompting questions about the retail giant’s practice of contracting with multiple smaller carriers instead of operating its own fleet of planes.

“The main question would be,” Aimer said, “why is it that a major company, a very rich company like Amazon Prime, is contracting their flying to several of what I would call fly by night operations like 21 Air?”

Officials investigate the scene where cars were damaged after a Prime Air cargo plane overran the runway and struck vehicles at Miami International Airport in Miami on Sept. 6, 2026.

Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

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Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Amazon vigorously disputed that characterization. An Amazon spokesperson says its carrier model is standard practice across the aviation industry, and that it contracts with carriers that are certified by air safety regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration.