A dreadful calamity has befallen the good city of Miami, where a vessel of the air, freighted with the goods of Amazon, did pass beyond its appointed track and bring death upon five souls, with five more grievously hurt. The Airport, so lately a scene of ordinary trade, became in an afternoon’s space a theatre of ruin, its neighboring road cast about with broken carriages struck by the wandering aircraft.
The Occurrence Itself
Upon Sunday, near the hour of two in the afternoon, a Boeing aircraft of the 767-300 order, flying as 21 Air Flight 7598, descended upon the Airport at Miami, having set forth from Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It failed to arrest itself upon the appointed track, rushing with great fury beyond its bounds and striking several carriages upon the neighboring road. An estimate furnished by certain instruments of observation suggests the aircraft was travelling at some 128 miles the hour when it departed the paved way.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County did confirm, in an evening address to the public, that five persons had perished and five more lay injured from the calamity. The names of the dead and the suffering have not yet been made known, a silence which lends the tragedy a still more melancholy air.
The Aid of Rescuers
No fewer than two hundred workers of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue were sent forth to the scene, laboring with utmost haste both to search out survivors and to subdue the flames that arose from the ruin. One unfortunate soul was discovered held fast beneath a carriage and required freeing by specialized MDFR technical rescue men, a task performed with skill worthy of praise under circumstances of great peril.
Specialized MDFR HazMat men, moreover, undertook the perilous business of silencing the aircraft’s workings and containing a leak of oil meant for its burning, so preventing what might have proved a great fire of yet more terrible extent. In total, ten patients were attended upon the ground; five were conveyed by Rescue vehicles, three to a trauma center of the city, and two others to hospitals in the neighboring country.
Voices of Grief and Inquiry
The National Transportation Safety Board has announced its intention to send forth a party of men skilled in inquiry to Miami, under the direction of Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, that the true causes of this dreadful event might be discovered. The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed the particulars of the flight and its unhappy end in a statement issued Sunday.
Amazon itself has spoken through its representative, Kelly Nantel, who declared the company sick at heart at the loss of five lives, and extended sympathies to the families and loved ones of the departed. The statement affirmed that the aircraft, under the charge of 21 Air, was in the very act of landing when calamity fell upon it, and pledged the company’s full aid to all inquiry into the matter.
Keith Winters, CEO of 21 Air, likewise addressed the public, professing his firm to be overwhelmed with sorrow at a calamity befalling one of its own aircraft. He offered his sympathies to those left in sorrow and affirmed that his immediate cares lay with aiding those affected and assisting the authorities in their labors. Winters further pledged full aid with the NTSB, the FAA, and all local authorities, while acknowledging that the circumstances attending the calamity remain, as yet, a matter for solemn inquiry.
A Melancholy Account
What wandering fate — whether of the aircraft’s workings, of weather, or of human error — brought this vessel to so violent an end upon the earth remains a question yet unanswered, and one which the NTSB’s inquiry, under Chairwoman Homendy’s guidance, must in time resolve. Until such hour, the city of Miami, and indeed all who grieve for the five departed, are left to sit with sorrow alone, awaiting only the cold comfort of explanation where no true consolation can be found.