Lessons for Toronto’s Island Airport from the disaster in Miami
A Parks not Planes press release
8 September 2026
On Sunday, September 7, an Amazon cargo plane overran a Miami Airport runway killing five people in a van as it careened off the end of a runway, crossed a four-lane road, and stopped next to a parking lot.
As Toronto’s Island Airport is attempting to address the challenges such overruns present, there are some lessons to be learned from this event.
1. RESA wholly inadequate
The Transport Canada mandated minimum 150m runway end safety areas (RESA) now being installed at the Island Airport are wholly inadequate. At Miami, even a 300m RESA was insufficient – the aircraft travelled more than 400m before stopping.
2. EMAS far more effective than RESA
Media have noted that the most effective way to stop an overrunning aircraft is use of an engineered material arresting system (EMAS).
The Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA says have been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide to safely stop planes that do go past the end of a runway. Those beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway have been credited by the FAA with helping save at least 497 lives aboard planes that overran runways.
Engineered materials arresting systems, referred to in the industry as EMAS, have been installed in at least 70 U.S. airports since the 1990s and are credited with successfully halting 26 airplanes that overshot runways, carrying a total of 497 passengers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The F.A.A. has recommended that airports install the buffers for at least two decades, stating in a 2005 advisory circular that the system had “demonstrated its effectiveness in arresting aircraft overruns.” The agency said last year that “EMAS has performed successfully every time, resulting in no loss of life and minimal damage.”
The Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA says have been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide to safely stop planes that do go past the end of a runway. Those beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway have been credited by the FAA with helping save at least 497 lives aboard planes that overran runways.
The Toronto Port Authority rejected EMAS using evaluation criteria that did not include considering their effectiveness in stopping over running aircraft.
EMAS at the Island Airport is particularly important as, with deep water off the end of the runway, the consequences of an overrun are potentially dire.
For further background on EMAS and safety at the Island Airport, see Parks not Planes’ recent report: Revealed: Secret TPA Report on Island Airport Runway Overruns.
3. Emergency vehicle access is a problem
More than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units attended at the scene, where there were only two people aboard the aircraft.
An expert study carried out in 1993 considered access to a crash scene at the Island Airport involving 50 passengers and concluded a bridge to the airport was essential to get the needed ~64 emergency vehicles to the site of a crash quickly enough. The study notes:
Any option must permit 64 emergency vehicles and 201 personnel to access an aircraft crash within 20 minutes. In addition, ambulances with the critically injured must be capable of returning to the mainland within a 30 minute period of time.
While the Toronto Port Authority has attempted to rebut that study, none of its stated improvements to emergency services come close to addressing the study’s stated need.
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