Can pilots be criminally charged after a plane crash? Here’s what experts say

By Alexandra Skores, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The two pilots of an Amazon Air cargo jet escaped their Boeing 767 with minor injuries last week at Miami International Airport after the plane ran off the end of a runway, striking two vehicles and killing five people.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, but regardless of what happened analysts say it’s unlikely the two men in the cockpit will face criminal charges.

“From a criminal perspective, there is a federal standard (when to prosecute), and it really has a high bar in terms of determining whether there was gross negligence, recklessness, or disregard for human life,” said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation.

In the Miami crash, one of the pilots expressed concern about the aircraft’s excessive speed as alarms sounded as it approached the runway, newly revealed information from the cockpit voice recorder shows. The landing, however, continued - a decision which will surely be examined in the NTSB investigation.

“They’ll be asked a lot of questions in terms of decision making and what was going on,” Shahidi said.

The probe by accident investigators usually takes more than a year to complete and is focused on identifying what happened and why. It does not assign blame or any sort of criminal liability, instead focusing on preventing an accident from ever happening again.

“In other countries, automatically, there’s a dual track of investigation,” Shahidi said. “One is a safety investigation by the regulatory authorities, and one is a criminal investigation, and that is the law in those countries, regardless of whether it’s a minor incident or accident … And the U.S. is actually very unique in the fact that they don’t automatically start a dual track.”

Most US pilots don’t face charges

Most pilots who have been faulted for crashes by investigators never face criminal charges.

In 2006, Comair Flight 5191 took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Kentucky. The Delta Connection regional jet was going nearly 160 mph when it ran off the end of the short runway and crashed into trees. Forty-nine people were killed.

The first officer was the only survivor. The NTSB said he and the captain failed to be sure they were on the right runway and lost “positional awareness” due to “nonpertinent conversations during taxi.” No one was criminally charged for the crash.

The pilots of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 were blamed for crashing into a seawall in 2013, sending their jet cartwheeling down a runway in San Francisco, killing three people and injuring 187 others.

In a final report, the NTSB found the flight crew mismanaged the plane’s descent, one of the pilots unintentionally turned off an automatic airspeed system and they didn’t abort the landing when the plane was flying too slow. The pilots were never charged.

The NTSB is not a prosecuting agency and does not assign liability, even when they determine a mistake by a pilot caused the crash.

The information investigators find is, however, published in a final report and docket and is publicly available after an investigation is complete.

“We don’t have the authority to give them immunity, so they really don’t have any protections other than the goodwill of all the agencies involved,” former NTSB board member John Goglia said. “They can very easily be charged.”

Criminal behavior can result in charges

Besides accident investigation agencies, local or federal prosecutors can conduct their own probes and pursue charges, though it is rare in the US for airline pilots to be charged criminally for a crash, according to Kathy Yodice, managing partner at aviation law firm Yodice Associates.

“There has to be evidence of a crime, and that can either be federal or state, and if there is any indication or showing that there might be criminal behavior, then yes, there would be, there could be, a criminal investigation,” she said.

An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot was criminally charged in state and federal court for trying to shut down the engines of a passenger plane in flight in 2023.

The pilot, Joseph Emerson, told police he had taken psychedelic mushrooms two days earlier and thought he was dreaming when he tried to cut off fuel to the engines of the Horizon Air regional jet.

As part of agreements with prosecutors, he entered guilty or no contest pleas. He was sentenced to 50 days in jail but given credit for 50 days of time served and supervised release for three years.

Pilots have also been charged with crimes when they, for example, show up to work under the influence of alcohol or are accused of committing crimes unrelated to their job flying.

Criminal charges from crashes themselves are more common with smaller, general aviation aircraft.

In June, a 37-year-old flight instructor, Philip McPherson II, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for a 2022 plane crash that killed a student pilot who was riding with him.

Prosecutors said the instructor had lost his pilot’s license the year before, after failing to demonstrate competency, and he had been involved in two prior crashes.

McPherson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, 40 counts of serving as an airman without a certificate and other charges.

Companies can also be criminally charged in the United States.

Boeing faced charges relating to the crash of two of its Boeing 737 Max jets that killed nearly 350 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Investigators blamed a design flaw in the plane’s autopilot system. Boeing admitted responsibility for the fatal crashes and that its employees withheld information about the design flaw from the Federal Aviation Administration during certification. The company agreed to a non-prosecution agreement in 2025 and fined $1.1 billion.

Civil lawsuits

Civil lawsuits are a very common way lawyers and victims try to hold accountable the people they see are responsible for plane crashes. They sometimes name airlines, airplane manufacturers, and pilots and often seek many millions of dollars in damages.

On Wednesday, the first wrongful death suit connected to the Miami crash was filed by the family of Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, who was in the van struck by the Amazon Air Boeing 767 as it went off the runway. His widow, Yaraisi Santiso Morejon, is suing the plane’s pilots, Amazon and 21 Air, the operator of the jet.

“Everyone who played a role in this horrific crash will be held accountable,” said the head of the law firm, John Morgan, in a statement.

The Federal Aviation Administration will also look at the incident to see if there should be any fines or other regulatory penalties – including losing a license or certificate – for anyone involved in the crash.

“We don’t know yet what’s going on in this particular accident and who might be looked at as having contributed to the tragedy,” said Yodice, of the aviation law firm. “FAA may be looking at it for compliance standpoint. Were any regulations violated? Was the maintenance kept up? Was the training appropriate? Did the pilots violate a particular federal aviation regulation that applied to their operation of that aircraft, or their flight and duty time regulations that might have been applicable.”

Amazon said it was pausing operations with 21 Air while it continues to work to support the investigation and those affected, according to a statement from the company.

“After the tragic incident last weekend, we’ve spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances, and we’ve decided to pause our operations with 21 Air, the operator of Flight 7598,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in the statement. CNN has reached out to 21 Air.

In a statement, 21 Air said it remains focused on supporting families and “working closely with the NTSB and all our partners, like Amazon, as the investigation continues. We are confident in our safety policies, procedures and training.”

Other countries have different rules for pilots

Criminal charges against pilots in other countries can be more common.

In 2005, a plane flying from Italy to Tunisia ran out of gas due to a faulty fuel gage and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea near Sicily, killing 16 people, investigators said.

Italian prosecutors said the Tunisian pilot panicked and prayed instead of taking emergency action, arguing he and his copilot could have possibly made it to a nearby airport. They were convicted and sentenced to jail time, according to Reuters.

Yodice points out US pilots flying internationally can face foreign charges if something happens.

“Aviation is a mobile industry,” Yodice said. “If they are involved in an accident in a foreign country, they could be subject to that foreign country’s rules on crimes, the foreign country’s criminal code, and possible criminal charges brought in the foreign country against the U.S. citizens.”

In 2006, a business jet flown by two Americans collided with a Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 at 37,000 feet over the Amazon jungle in Brazil, according to investigators.

All 154 people on the commercial flight died, but the two pilots in the business jet were able to make an emergency landing.

The Brazilian authorities charged the pilots, while they maintained they did nothing wrong and the collision was caused by air traffic control mistakes.

The two Americans were convicted but refused to return to Brazil and the US would not extradite them. Eventually the case was closed.

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Pete Muntean, Alex Stambaugh and Andy Rose contributed to this report.