For nearly two minutes, one of the pilots of the Amazon cargo plane that careened off a Miami runway and killed five people repeatedly warned his counterpart they were going too fast as they approached for landing and after touchdown, according to flight information released Wednesday.
A summary of cockpit voice recordings compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board said the fellow pilot never gave “a consistent verbal response” to the warnings. The plane touched down awkwardly, briefly attempted to take off and then smashed into a van carrying the five victims.
The Amazon plane came in fast on Sunday afternoon and then barreled roughly 1,300 feet (396 meters) past the end of the runway and smashed into a van carrying workers at a plane cleaning company before hitting a compact SUV as it slid across a public road before catching fire.
All five people who died were in the van. Five others were hurt, including two who remained in critical condition on Tuesday. The two pilots survived and were interviewed Wednesday by investigators.
At the point when the pilot first called out the plane was speeding, former FAA official Mike O’Donnell said the crew could have done a number of things to slow it down, including extending the spoilers, cutting the throttles and lowering the landing gear. Or the pilots could have just aborted the landing at that point and circled to try again.
“You have plenty of time to slow down, plenty of time to say, let’s just do a go-around at two minutes out,” said O’Donnell, who used to oversee airport safety and crash investigations.
Information from the flight data recorder that was released late Tuesday shows how unsteady the plane was as it came in to land amid strong winds, and then the pilots briefly disengaged the brakes and shoved the throttles up as if they were trying to take off again and retry the landing. But they abandoned that just four seconds later.
The cockpit audio recordings also captured a series of automated warnings from the plane about the speed of descent and the approaching terrain. O'Donnell said those terrain warnings reinforce that the plane was unsteady and suggest it may not have been configured correctly for landing.
The Amazon plane was well down the runway when its right and nose landing gear first touched down, reducing how much distance the plane had on the runway ahead of it to stop. Strong winds at the airport as storms moved in may have created a tail wind that helped propel the plane forward. Tracking site Flightradar24 estimated based on the NTSB data that the plane was nearly halfway down the 9,360-foot runway when it first touched down.
The full transcript of the cockpit conversation won’t be released until later in the investigation.
Several experts have said the pilots should have aborted that landing while the plane was still in the air and circled around to retry it.
Former airline pilot and safety expert Steve Arroyo said the details released Wednesday show a lack of teamwork in the cockpit and suggest the pilot at the controls may have been too focused on the landing to acknowledge the speed warnings.
“Where’s the coordination? Where’s the leadership here in terms of managing the flight deck? And following the trained guidelines set forth in the company’s flight manual?” Arroyo questioned.
Mary Schiavo, who is a former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, said she wonders if the pilot at the controls was the more senior captain while the less experienced first officer called out the warnings “and the junior pilot was not aggressive in challenging.”
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.
The final flight was operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina that has been flying packages for Amazon since 2024.
The jet’s ownership history, weather conditions at the airport, maintenance records and operations by 21 Air were expected to be reviewed by NTSB investigators.
It’s the second crash of a cargo jet in the U.S. in less than a year. A UPS plane crashed after losing its engine while accelerating down the runway at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport in October. The crash killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured.
This photo provided by the NTSB on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, shows the flight data recorder from from the Amazon cargo jet that barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport. (NTSB via AP)
This photo provided by the NTSB on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, shows the flight data recorder from from the Amazon cargo jet that barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport. (NTSB via AP)
Workers inspect an Amazon cargo plane two days after it overshot a runway at Miami International Airport, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave new clarity Wednesday on the U.S. approach toward combating drug trafficking in Latin American waters, saying the Trump administration is now focused on working with allied countries and aligning with their laws but insisting the military will “still blow up ships if need be.”
The public acknowledgment of a shift in U.S. strategy comes a year after Washington began a campaign of unilateral deadly strikes against those it calls “narcoterrorists" operating boats in international waters. Late Wednesday, U.S. Southern Command announced the latest such strike in the Caribbean Sea, saying it killed three people. That brought the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 230 in 69 strikes.
Still, the Trump administration is focused on building agreements for joint operations with allied countries in the region, including Colombia and Ecuador, that comply with their laws in their waters.
“I think its an incredible advance for the first time to have countries that are willing to participate in these efforts in their territorial waters,” Rubio told reporters on a trip to the Ecuadorian capital, Quito.
“The important point is that these routes are being disrupted. These routes are being ended,” he added.
He said the decision is “a strike-by-strike or operation-by-operation determination” that depends on the threat and location of the boat.
Recent U.S. interdictions in Latin American waters are unlike the Trump administration’s initial strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that began in September 2025. Lately, people aboard floating refueling stations said to be supporting drug trafficking have been removed and transferred to Ecuadorian authorities. Then the U.S. military blows up the vessels.
The shift comes after a series of strikes on boats over the year on people the Trump administration accused of being “narcoterrorists” without providing evidence.
Rubio's comments came during a three-nation tour of South America aimed at boosting security cooperation with conservative leaders who have cozied up to President Donald Trump.
In Ecuador on Wednesday, he hailed it as the most “aggressive” partner in the Trump administration’s push to target transnational criminal groups in the Western Hemisphere. Rubio met with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, who has rapidly embraced Trump’s get-tough stance on counternarcotics operations and illegal immigration.
Rubio said “elite forces” from both countries “are working jointly on a day-to-day basis in a way that has no precedent in order to try to dismantle these terrorist organizations.”
But he singled out Mexico, calling it “an even graver challenge” than other countries in the region because of cartels’ power there and saying the “ideal” scenario would be for the two countries to address the situation jointly.
“Eventually that threat will have to be confronted one way or the other,” Rubio told reporters in Ecuador. “But our hope is to do it cooperatively with Mexican authorities.”
Rubio said Mexican authorities have done “more than they’ve ever done before to go after these groups, but it is still not nearly enough.”
He also announced his latest foreign terrorist organization designation of a Latin American drug trafficking ring: Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones. It was among 22 criminal gangs designated as “terrorists” by Ecuador in 2024 after it declared an internal armed conflict during a surge in violence that included gunmen storming a television station during a live broadcast.
Under the Trump administration’s counternarcotics strategy, it could make the group a target for military action.
Ecuador has been helping the U.S. as it intercepts and sinks vessels, including one Tuesday that Washington said had links to the Ecuadorian criminal group Los Choneros. It was the sixth such operation in less than two weeks and the second in as many days.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Roberto Kury called his country “a loyal ally, an active ally and a decisive ally to be able to build a safer hemisphere, free hemisphere and prosperous hemisphere.”
Rubio said he would be asking Congress for $45 million to keep funding the effort of “dismantling these terrorist groups,” although he did not specify what the funds would be for.
Ecuador has struggled to contain drug violence since 2021 as rival cartels partner with local gangs and battle for control of routes and coastal ports used to smuggle cocaine. The country is wedged between Colombia and Peru, the world’s top cocaine-producing countries.
Under Noboa, Ecuador has become a strong U.S. partner in counterdrug efforts in the region.
On Wednesday, Rubio was presented with Ecuador’s second-highest national honor, the National Order of Merit in the degree of Grand Cross, for his service in improving U.S.-Ecuador ties. Noboa said Rubio was helping bring peace to the U.S. and the region by traveling between countries to strengthen security and ties.
Rubio will head next to Lima to meet new Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, another leader aligned with Trump’s tough positions on the drug trade and migration. On Tuesday, he met with new conservative firebrand President Abelardo de la Espriella in Barranquilla on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Associated Press writers Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
U.S. Sec. of State Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette Rubio deplane at Mariscal Sucre International airport in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, Pool)
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa, center, and first lady Lavinia Valbonesi, second from right, stand with U.S. Sec. of State Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette Rubio at Carondelet palace in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, Pool)
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa, right, presents U.S. Sec. of State Marco Rubio with Ecuador's highest-ranking National Order of Merit, the Grand Cross, at Carondelet palace in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, Pool)
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa, right, and U.S. Sec. of State Marco Rubio hold a document related to Ecuador's highest-ranking National Order of Merit, the Grand Cross, presented to Rubio, which he is wearing, at Carondelet palace in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, Pool)
Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio embrace during a bilateral agreements signing ceremony in Barranquilla, Colombia, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with reporters in Barranquilla, Colombia, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a bilateral agreements signing ceremony in Barranquilla, Colombia, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, Pool)
