Federal investigators descended on Miami International Airport to figure out why an Amazon cargo jet turned a routine landing into a fireball that killed five people. The jet barreled off the runway. Investigators will focus on "a crucial moment in the landing," which is investigator-speak for something went catastrophically wrong right when it shouldn't have.
Amazon has spent two decades perfecting the art of delivering packages to your door faster than you can regret buying them. Turns out keeping a 767 on asphalt requires different skills than optimizing warehouse worker bathroom breaks. The jet carrying your impulse purchases and someone's third air fryer this month decided the runway was more of a suggestion than a rule.
Five people died so Jeff Bezos could shave twelve minutes off your deodorant delivery time. That's the business model. Speed above all else. Get the package there faster. Faster routes. Faster planes. Faster pilots who definitely aren't being pushed beyond reasonable limits by metrics-obsessed middle managers who've never sat in a cockpit but have very strong opinions about fuel efficiency.
The National Transportation Safety Board will spend months analyzing flight data recorders and interviewing witnesses. They'll write a 200-page report with phrases like "contributing factors" and "procedural deficiencies." What they won't write is that the entire logistics industry runs on razor-thin margins that treat human beings like replaceable widgets in a supply chain designed by algorithms that don't bleed.
But hey, your toilet paper arrives in one day now instead of two. Worth it.
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