Yaraisi Santiso Morejon filed the first lawsuit Wednesday over the deadly Amazon cargo plane crash that killed her husband.
Morejon, the widow of van driver Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 53, is suing Amazon and aviation operator 21 Air in Miami-Dade County’s 11th Judicial Circuit Court, alleging the companies and the flight crew share blame for what she calls a preventable tragedy. Her husband was one of five people killed when Amazon Prime Air Flight 7598 overran Runway 30 at Miami International Airport and slammed into his Ford van.
The lawsuit names both pilots, Joseph Carroll and Jamie Felipe Silva Molina, as individual defendants alongside the corporate entities. Attorneys from the firm Morgan & Morgan are representing Morejon, with founder John Morgan speaking publicly about the case on Wednesday.
“Our hearts go out to Yaraisi and her family, as well as all those who were impacted by what we believe was a preventable tragedy,” Morgan said in a statement.
The suit alleges the crash resulted from layered failures rather than a single catastrophic event. It cites the operation of a 32-year-old aircraft with braking, thrust reverser, and spoiler systems now under active National Transportation Safety Board investigation. The filing also points to inadequate training and pilot error, specifically the decision to attempt what it describes as “a high-speed, tailwind-affected landing while failing to execute a mandatory go-around.”
The aircraft was traveling at 167 knots, roughly 192 mph, with only 5,000 feet of paved runway remaining when it failed to stop. That touchdown point was approximately 4,000 feet past where the plane should have landed, according to the lawsuit.
“Each of these failures, standing alone, was sufficient to cause death. Together, they were catastrophic,” the suit states.
Morgan & Morgan attorney Mike Morgan expanded on the firm’s investigative findings. “We allege that this was not a freak accident, but a foreseeable and preventable disaster caused by negligence,” he said. “What we’ve already uncovered points to a series of failures by the people flying the plane, the companies that put it in the air and the systems that were supposed to prevent this exact kind of tragedy. Yaraisi deserves answers and justice. We intend to get her both.”
Morejon is seeking damages in excess of $50,000 and has requested a jury trial. The lawsuit frames the victims as people who had every reasonable expectation of safety in their workplace environment.
“The victims were airport workers and a motorist on a public road—people who had every reason to believe they were safe. They were not,” the filing reads.
The van Naranjo was driving carried several cleaning crew workers employed by Professional Ocean Service Corp. At the time of impact. All were within airport property when the cargo jet failed to halt its landing roll.
Both pilots survived the wreckage, though five other people sustained injuries in the crash. Airport staffer Abraham Altamar, who witnessed the aftermath, said that Captain Silva Molina was distraught and focused on personal consequences rather than the fatalities.
“Just tell my mom that I was in the accident, but I’m already out of the plane, that I’m good,” Silva Molina said on the phone, according to Altamar’s account.
The pilot also reportedly stressed that his “career is over” in the immediate aftermath.
“This disaster was not an unavoidable accident. It was the foreseeable and preventable result of multiple, concurrent failures,” the lawsuit states, summarizing the core legal theory behind Morejon’s wrongful death claim.
The crash occurred when the Boeing 767 cargo aircraft, operating for Amazon’s Prime Air service, failed to stop on Runway 30 and crashed through the airport perimeter fence into the van on an adjacent road. The NTSB investigation into the mechanical systems and operational decisions continues.