On Sept. 6, 2026, a tower controller at Miami International Airport cleared a Boeing 767 freighter to land on runway 30 without telling the crew what the wind was doing. The wind that afternoon was blowing from the south at gusts above 20 knots, which put a tailwind behind the landing aircraft. The NTSB’s preliminary report on the accident says that wind information was required in that situation and was not passed on.
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The finding is narrow and it is not a verdict. The same report states that investigators have not settled what caused the runway overrun, and nothing in it says the missing wind advisory changed what the pilots did. What it establishes, in the plain language of a factual record, is what the controller said and did not say in the final minutes before touchdown.
The controller’s clearance, as the preliminary report describes it
The aircraft was 21 Air flight 7598, a 767-300 freighter registered N1997A, operating a domestic cargo flight for Amazon from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. It overran runway 30 at about 1353 Eastern time. According to the NTSB preliminary report DCA26MA352, the crew checked in with Miami tower and was cleared to land at about 1349, when the jet was roughly 12 nautical miles from the displaced threshold of runway 30.
The local control south controller, who handled runways 9/27 and 12/30, issued that landing clearance but did not give wind information. About four minutes earlier, the same controller had given another flight a wind of 190 degrees at 19 knots, gusting to 22, after that pilot asked for it. Flight 7598 was not yet on the frequency and heard none of it. The NTSB’s investigation page puts the crew’s check-in and the landing clearance about 4 minutes 18 seconds before the cockpit voice recording ended, so the clearance and the end of the flight were separated by a little over four minutes.
The controller had 11 years of air traffic experience, had been certified for the local control south position since November 2019, and had been working that position for about 17 minutes when the accident happened. The preliminary report lays those experience figures out without comment. The point of the account is sequence: wind was available, it had been passed to one aircraft, and it did not reach the next one that needed it.
The tailwind rule in FAA Order JO 7110.65BB
The report cites FAA Order JO 7110.65BB, the handbook that governs air traffic control procedures. The relevant paragraph is paragraph 3-5-3 on tailwind components, which reads: “When authorizing use of runways and a tailwind component exists, always state both wind direction and velocity.” The requirement applies as soon as a tailwind component exists, and it names both direction and speed, so a bare landing clearance does not satisfy it. The preliminary report applies that same standard to the Miami clearance and records that it was not met.
A wind from 190 degrees falls more than 90 degrees away from the direction of a runway 30 landing, so it carried a tailwind component for this approach. The conditions were not subtle. Miami’s automated station recorded 190 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 24, at 1350. The routine weather report at 1353 gave 190 degrees at 17 knots, gusting to 26, with thunderstorms in the area, scattered cumulonimbus at 2,000 feet and a broken ceiling at 4,800 feet. The peak wind for the hour was 180 degrees at 26 knots at 1352, and a wind shift had been logged at 1337.
Flight data in the report put the 767 across the runway threshold at about 105 feet above ground level and a groundspeed of 177 knots. The cockpit voice recording shows the first officer cautioning that the airplane was too fast on the approach. A gusting tailwind adds directly to groundspeed, so the wind figures and the speed figures describe the same few minutes, though the preliminary report draws no line between them.
No probable cause, not yet
As quoted by KATV in its coverage of the report, the NTSB said it “has not determined what caused the Sept. 6 crash,” and the investigation could take more than a year to complete. Airways magazine’s reading of the report adds that it does not determine how the wind-information omission affected the crew’s decisions or the outcome. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is listed as a party to the investigation on the NTSB’s investigation page, which was last updated on Oct. 1, 2026.
The report also sets out who was flying. The captain, who was the pilot flying, held a 767 type rating received on May 18, 2026, and had about 7,267 total flight hours, including about 150 in the 767. The first officer had about 2,800 hours, about 800 of them in the 767, and the two had first flown together on the earlier flight that day. None of that is presented as a cause either.
The carrier’s public position is also on record. 21 Air said it is “reviewing the preliminary report and its safety and operational procedures” and “will take appropriate action as facts are established.” For the controller’s part of the story, the open question is the one the NTSB has left for its final report: whether the missing tailwind advisory contributed to a landing that ended past the end of runway 30.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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