All 5 killed in Miami cargo jet crash were in a van used by plane cleaners

MIAMI (AP) — The five people killed when an Amazon cargo jet ran off the runway at Miami International Airport were all inside a van used to shuttle crews that clean planes, authorities said.

The jet overran the runway while landing Sunday. It slammed into the van on airport property, careened through a fence and then smashed an SUV on a city street.

Five other people were injured. The pilot and co-pilot have been released from the hospital, Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said Tuesday. Two people remain in critical condition, while a third is in stable condition, she said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash. One focus will be on the lack of a system to slow and stop speeding jets at the end of runways.

Miami is not one of the 120 airports in the U.S. with lightweight, crushable material that the Federal Aviation Administration says has saved around 500 lives.

Even without a runway excursion system, Miami’s airport appears to be compliant with federal rules because it has a 1,000-foot (305-meter) safety buffer at the end of its runways, experts said.

NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said her agency’s goal is to prevent tragedies, but runway excursions continue to happen even after the board has suggested installing the systems in the past.

“Our recommendations must be implemented or we’re going to be here again,” she said at a Monday news conference.

Investigators recovered the flight data recorder and the information is being reviewed. Interviews with the pilot, co-pilot, air traffic controllers and others are being scheduled, Homendy said.

Amazon said in a statement that it is cooperating with the investigation and the company's deepest sympathies go to the victims and their families.

The five people killed were all in a van owned by Professional Ocean Service Corp., a company that cleans planes. The company said it wouldn't comment on the crash out of respect for the families who lost loved ones.

"Our employees are far more than the people who work beside us each day, they are family, and they are deeply loved. Our hearts and prayers are with every employee and every family whose lives have been forever changed," the company said in a statement Tuesday.

The Miami-Dade sheriff identified the deceased as Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Narajo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, 47.

The Amazon jet was landing after a two-hour flight from Puerto Rico as storms brewed around the Miami airport.

The NTSB said the plane barreled roughly 1,300 feet (396 meters) past the end of the runway.

Homendy called the scene “utter devastation,” with pieces of the vehicles, air bags, destroyed navigational equipment and fencing along the plane’s route. She said she had to be careful because jet fuel was still all around 24 hours after the crash.

Strong winds over 25 knots were reported Saturday afternoon. Experts who viewed video of the landing said it appears that a strong tail wind propelled the plane far down the runway past the point where it was supposed to land. The plane remained airborne without flaring the nose to force the wheels onto the ground.

It is not immediately clear why the pilot didn’t abort landing and go around to try again.

Air traffic controllers also had not changed the approach to the runway to allow the plane to land into a headwind. Airports routinely change which direction planes land on a runway when the winds shift.

The flight had been operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina. The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for several airlines in foreign countries for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

Two of the four runways at the Miami airport remained closed Tuesday, and Homendy said they will not be reopened until NTSB investigators gather all the information they need from the crash scene.

More than 225 flights were canceled Sunday and Monday, and hundreds more were delayed, officials said.

Homendy said the NTSB will try to release the runway back to the airport as quickly as possible after investigators document the scene.

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina.

An Amazon cargo plane sits at Miami International Airport after overshooting a runway on Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/David Santiago)

An Amazon cargo plane sits at Miami International Airport after overshooting a runway on Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/David Santiago)

An NTSB investigator works near a damaged van at the site where an Amazon cargo plane overshot the runway two days earlier while landing at Miami International Airport, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

PARIS (AP) — Two thieves sliced through a fence, climbed through a window and stole four valuable Renoir paintings Tuesday from a small museum on the French Riviera, but abandoned two of the artworks as they fled, authorities said. Investigators launched a national search for the perpetrators.

The whole operation took less than three minutes and targeted the most valuable works in the Renoir Museum in the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, the regional prosecutor's office said.

The theft conjured up painful memories of the spectacular heist of crown jewels at the Louvre Museum in Paris last year and revived calls for better security a nd better funding for the many cultural sites large and small that dot France's landscape.

Cagnes-sur-Mer Mayor Bryan Masson estimated the value of the combined Renoir works stolen Tuesday at 9 million euros ($10.5 million), but art theft experts warned they will be extremely hard to sell.

The Renoir Museum is housed in the last home of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, where he lived before his death in 1919. It’s the most famous attraction in Cagnes-sur-Mer, situated between Cannes and Nice on the Mediterranean coast.

The “well-equipped” and “well-informed” thieves entered the Renoir Museum via the garden, Masson told reporters at the scene.

They sliced through a fence with an electric knife or saw, entered the museum through the ground floor, and then cut the clips securing the artwork frames, Masson said in remarks carried by local broadcaster Ici Azur.

The museum’s alarm system went off at 5:48 a.m. local time, and police arrived five minutes later, the mayor said. Their swift arrival “forced the burglars to flee in haste and helped limit the scale of the theft,” the mayor said in a written statement sent to The Associated Press.

Two of the stolen works were found dropped in the museum garden — Renoir's ’’Portrait of Madame Pichon″ and “Coco Reading,'' the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The two still missing are “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well.”

At least two of the works targeted Tuesday had a troubled history.

″Young Woman at the Well″ is believed to have been looted by the Nazis during World War II, and was recovered in Bavaria in 1949 and brought back to France, according to the French Culture Ministry database of spoliated art.

A German officer in Paris gave ″Coco Reading″ to a German soldier at the end of the war under orders to take it to Germany, according to the database. The soldier later gave it to a German priest, who handed it over to a Berlin museum in 1972. Germany’s government returned it to France in 1994.

The Cagnes-sur-Mer museum had 12 works by Renoir in total, the mayor said. The museum was closed Tuesday while the investigation unfolded.

The Marseille prosecutor opened an investigation into theft by an organized gang. The French national office for traffic in cultural goods is joining the investigation.

“This incident should serve as a warning about the protection of our museums,” the mayor said.

Art theft expert James Ratcliffe of the Art Loss Register told the AP that underfunding is the main problem facing museums everywhere, not just in France. And smaller museums are especially exposed because of their limited finances.

‘’The theft of the Louvre has demonstrated to everybody with criminal intent that museums are potentially soft targets,'' he said. ‘’People are looking at museums differently.''

Unlike the Louvre heist or other recent museum thefts targeting gold or jewels that can be melted down or recut, the Renoir theft leaves the thieves in a predicament.

‘’Although the (paintings) are valuable, and will have probably seven figures attached to them in terms of the financial value, trying to find a buyer who will pay that is going to be almost impossible for them,'' Ratcliffe said.

‘’Unless they have a plan for that in advance, they’re not going to be able to just go to an art dealer and say, ‘Look, I’ve got these two nice Renoirs, would you like to buy them?’ ''

A barrier tape is set on the fence of the Renoir Museum after thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)

The entrance of the Renoir Museum where thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)

The entrance of the Renoir Museum is pictured after thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)

A police car is parked in front of the Renoir Museum after thieves stole four valuable Renoir paintings, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni)