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Atlas Air Flight 3591

February 23, 2019 aviation accident

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ61846653
Source-derived summary

Atlas Air Flight 3591 was a scheduled domestic cargo flight between Miami International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, operated by Atlas Air on behalf of Amazon Air. On February 23, 2019, the Boeing 767 operating this flight crashed into Trinity Bay during approach into Houston, killing the two crew members and single passenger on board. The accident occurred near Anahuac, Texas, east of Houston, shortly before 12:45 CST (18:45 UTC). This was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 767 freighter, and the first fatal crash involving Amazon Air.

Investigators attributed the accident to pilot error, finding that the first officer – who had years of flight performance issues at four previous airlines – experienced spatial disorientation and inadvertently placed the aircraft in an unrecoverable dive, while the captain failed to adequately monitor the first officer's actions and the flight path of the aircraft. Flight crew training issues at Atlas Air and across the U.S. commercial aviation industry were also implicated.

Background

Aircraft

The Boeing 767-375ER(BCF) (MSN 25865/430) aircraft was registered N1217A and was nearly 27 years old at the time of the accident, having been built in 1992. It was originally ordered by Canadian Airlines, but it was first placed into service by China Southern Airlines through GPA, an aircraft leasing company. In 1997, the aircraft was transferred to LAN Airlines and flew until 2014 before being returned to lessor CIT, which then stored it in January 2016. In April 2017, the 767 was converted into a freighter and placed into service for Amazon Air by Atlas Air.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Atlas Air Flight 3591” as february 23, 2019 aviation accident. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Atlas, Flight and February.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2019, 1992, 1997, 2014—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Atlas, Flight and February providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Atlas Air Flight 3591”, the useful work is to connect “february 23, 2019 aviation accident” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q61846653. Authority coordinates are 29.764, -94.715. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 1992, 1997 and 2014.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Atlas Air Flight 3591” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.