What Happened to Prime Air Flight 7598?
On September 6, 2026, a Boeing 767 freighter, Flight 7598, operated by Amazon Prime Air, departed San Juan, Puerto Rico. It landed at Miami International Airport at approximately 1:53 p.m. Eastern time. During the landing, the aircraft was unable to stop within the remaining length of the runway. It overran Runway 30, went through the airport perimeter fence, and came to rest near NW 72nd Avenue, a public road.
Five people on the ground were killed, and five others sustained injuries. Both pilots survived.
Prime Air Flight Overrun at Miami International Airport, Runway 30
The NTSB opened a major investigation. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders were recovered from the site and transported to Washington, D.C., for analysis.
Confirmed facts at this time:
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Flight 7598 departed the runway at approximately 112 knots according to ADS-B flight-tracking data.
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The aircraft came to rest approximately 1,300 feet beyond the runway.
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Weather conditions at the time of the event included storms and gusty southerly winds.
What Was The Impact Of The Overrun?
Before analyzing why Prime Air 7598 overran the runway, we need a clear picture of what happened, when and where it happened, and how the incident impacted organizational goals. In Cause Mapping® root cause analysis, we use the Problem Outline to organize those basic details.
Prime Air Flight Overrun Problem Outline
How Does The Analysis Start?
Explaining how an incident occurred requires understanding the cause-and-effect relationships that produced the outcome. With limited information, the analysis can start simple and expand as more details become available.
A 5-Why Cause Map™ diagram provides a basic starting point for the analysis. It builds backwards from the negative consequence—in this case, the fatalities—to reveal what contributed to that outcome.
Prime Air Flight 7598 Overrun 5-Why Cause Map™
This 5-Why is simply the initial phase of the analysis. It’s accurate, but it’s not a complete explanation of the incident. It doesn't yet explain where the bystander vehicles were, why the landing failed, why it overran the runway, or how the weather may have contributed.
How Does The Analysis Expand?
We can expand to a 6-Why Cause Map diagram because we know that for Prime Air 7598 to hit bystander vehicles, the aircraft needed to cross the road and bystander vehicles had to be on that road. Even though it is normal for vehicles to be on this public road, their presence is still causally related to the incident.
People often think of causes as “bad” things. But a cause is anything that was required to produce the effect, whether it was unusual or completely normal.
Prime Air Flight 7598 Overrun 6-Why Cause Map™
Now, we can ask more specific questions about the incident such as:
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Why did the aircraft overrun the runway?
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What was going on with the weather?
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Was there a mechanical issue with the plane?
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Was there something wrong with the runway surface?
These questions expand the 6-Why into a 13-Why. The Cause Map diagram organizes what is known and what is still unknown about the incident. Any information that is unknown at this stage is indicated by a question mark.
Prime Air Flight 7598 Overrun 13-Why Cause Map™
What Do Investigators Still Need to Answer?
A question mark on a Cause Map diagram reveals the unknowns. It is a directive to collect evidence that can support or disprove a possible cause. Question marks stay on the Cause Map diagram until there is sufficient confidence in the evidence. This ensures the analysis remains objective and factual.
The NTSB will do that work. The aircraft’s black boxes are built-in evidence collection mechanisms that capture important details about what happened. As the NTSB investigates these and other sources of evidence, it will be able to confirm or rule out possible causes of the incident.
As is often the case, public commentary on this incident has focused on identifying a single cause: tailwind, speed, landing too far down the runway, or crew error. Some of these may be causally related. Some may not. Each has to be supported by evidence.
We do not expect this incident to have a single cause. It will have multiple causes that, together, produced this exact outcome.
As the NTSB releases more investigation, we’ll update our case study.
