5 killed by Amazon cargo plane remembered as generous crew who took pride in their dangerous work

An exhausted Julio Pineda would arrive some nights at the Miami-Dade County apartment complex where he lived with his reflective vest and gray work shirt and slacks covered in grease and grime, a neighbor recalled. Still, the 75-year-old member of an airplane cleaning crew, who was known as “El Mago,” the Magician, often took a moment to perform magic tricks and hand out candy to children before going home to rest, neighbor and friend José Sigas told CNN. Pineda was one of five men killed last Sunday when a more than 100-ton plane operated for Amazon by contractor 21 Air hurtled past the end of a runway at Miami International Airport and slammed into a van full of cleaning workers, an airport fence, concrete vehicle barriers and an SUV before finally stopping and catching fire. The van was left a tangled heap of metal. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

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