The pilot in command of the Amazon Prime cargo jet that went off the end of a runway in a crash that left five people dead was a former U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter instructor and aviation safety officer, the Daily Mail has learned.

Joseph Carroll, one of the two crew members who walked away unharmed from Sunday’s deadly incident at Miami International Airport, had spent 15 years in the military before moving into commercial aviation.

Carroll, 55, a married father of two sons, began his Army career in 1997 as an air traffic controller before qualifying as a Black Hawk UH-60 pilot and later helping prepare other soldiers for combat deployments overseas.

During the final nine months of his service, Carroll worked as a safety officer for an aviation unit based in Reno, Nevada, according to details listed on his online resume.

After leaving the Army in 2013, the Boulder, Colorado-based veteran joined a drone company as vice president of flight operations, a role that again placed him in charge of compliance, safety and occupational health oversight.

He transitioned into flying commercial planes in 2018, working first for SkyWest Airlines then Kalitta Charters and most recently 21Air, which operated Sunday’s flight for Amazon.

The experienced aviator found himself at the controls of the Boeing 767 during a catastrophic crash landing, which is now the subject of a National Transportation Safety Board investigation.

Investigators revealed shocking new data Tuesday night suggesting the Boeing 767 jet may have dithered between trying to land and take off again in its confounding final moments.

NTSB engineer Chihoon Shin told reporters that 30 seconds before the end of the flight data recording, the nose landing gear and right main landing gear touched down.

The left main landing gear then touched down at Miami’s Runway 30 with 19 seconds to go.

Four seconds later, Chihoon said, the brakes were released and the throttles were ‘increased to values consistent with go-around thrust.’

The sudden burst of power could indicate that whoever was flying the plane, Carroll or First Officer Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, 37, was trying suddenly to abort their landing.

But with 11 seconds to go on the recording, they reduced the throttles to idle and reapplied the brakes.

There was, according to Chihoon, no indication they deployed their speed brakes and thrust reversers, both of which would have helped the massive plane reduce speed.

Investigators have not said whether it was Carroll or Silva flying the plane before it barreled into a cleaning van owned by aircraft cleaning company Professional Ocean Service Corp, killing five occupants and injuring two more.

Both airmen, who were hospitalized and then released, are due to be interviewed by the NTSB on Wednesday.

The Daily Mail asked an experienced 767 pilot who flies for a major commercial airline to interpret the latest data.

‘My initial read on the timeline is that whoever was flying the plane screwed up royally,’ the pilot said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘He landed too far down the runway and should have gone around. But it looks as though he allowed the airplane to touch down, started to apply brakes but forgot the thrust reverses and ground spoilers.

‘He realized he didn’t have enough runway left and advanced the power. He then realized he didn’t have enough runway to take off and hit the brakes. It was too late to avoid going off the runway.’

The pilot told the Daily Mail that attempting to land a plane amidst an unstable approach might see the crew flagged for retraining at a passenger airline.

‘If you are outside these parameters, expect a phone call to explain why you continued the approach,’ he said.

‘No self-respecting pilot should be embarrassed by having to go around. Yes, there is some self-flagellation because it may have been caused by self-induced errors.

‘My response: who gives a crap. Safety is priority. There is no room for ego.’

Neither pilot could be reached for comment.

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Captain Carroll had 7,145 hours of flying experience, while Silva had 2,655, according to the NTSB.

Carroll, for his part, was relatively inexperienced with the 767, having earned his type rating for the decades-old widebody jet in May.

Silva gained an aeronautical engineering degree from his native Colombia before moving to Miami to study and attend flight school.

A LinkedIn profile seen by the Daily Mail shows that Silva describes himself as a pilot who thrives in ‘dynamic environments where professionalism, communication and sound decision making are essential.’

‘I remain committed to advancing my aviation career while contributing to safe, efficient and high-performing flight operations,’ he said.

Social media posts reveal how Silva even used his passion for aviation to pull off an elaborate proposal to his wife, Lorena Arevalo, six years ago.

Photos show he flew over to reveal a massive ‘MARRY ME’ sign spelled out on the lawn, before getting down on bended knee on the tarmac.

The couple later posed with champagne and the new rock on his then-fiancée’s finger, alongside a light aircraft.

He even documented the romantic surprise in a nine-minute video titled ‘A proposal to remember in the air,’ and teasing in the caption: ‘she has no idea what is about to happen.’

The footage shows the couple buckled up in the plane and taking off, flying in the clear south Florida skies until he made his bride-to-be look down – where she spotted the marry me sign and was overcome, tearfully repeating, ‘te amo, te amo (I love you).’

The five dead were identified as Rolando Aleman, 55, Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 53, Julio C Pineda, 75, Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53, and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo.

After crushing their van, the plane tore through a perimeter fence onto a local street where it hit an SUV, finally grinding to a halt 1,300ft past the end of the tarmac.

The plane was arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico – the aircraft’s third trip of the day.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but a preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration found that the airport is not equipped with the Engineered Materials Arresting System that has been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide.

The system places beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway to help bring planes that overshoot the tarmac safely to a stop, the agency said.

Meanwhile, the widow of one of those killed has launched a wrongful death lawsuit against both pilots, as well as Amazon, Amazon Air Cargo and 21 Air, alleging a catalogue of failures led to the tragedy.

Yaraisi Santiso Morejon, whose husband Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo was among the five who perished, filed the action in Miami Dade Circuit Court.

The lawsuit alleges pilot error and other failures were to blame, including inadequate training and the fact the aircraft was 32 years old.

Mike Morgan, of injury law firm Morgan & Morgan which is handling the case, said: ‘We allege that this was not a freak accident, but a foreseeable and preventable disaster caused by negligence.

‘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.’

‘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,’ John Morgan, the firm’s founder, added. 

‘No one should lose their loved one this way, and the filing of this lawsuit is just the beginning of our fight to secure justice and accountability for Mr. Naranjo’s death. Everyone who played a role in this horrific crash will be held accountable.’

The Daily Mail reached out to the defendants named in the lawsuit.  

A woman was brutally mauled by a pit bull on a San Francisco street after the dog was allegedly left off its leash by its owner.

The attack happened Tuesday morning as the woman walked through the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where the dog suddenly lunged at her, a witness told CBS.

According to the outlet, the ordeal continued for roughly 10 to 15 minutes while bystanders tried to stop the attack, including by using pepper spray to force the dog away from the victim.

The incident unfolded about a quarter of a mile from the Tenderloin police station.

After officers arrived, they were able to restrain the pit bull using a catch pole.

According to the outlet, the dog and its owner frequently appear in the Tenderloin, although it remains unclear whether the dog is always kept on a leash.

A video posted to the Citizen app shows the woman lying on the ground with the pit bull beside her, its face covered in blood. 

In a video uploaded by Tenderloin Activities, witnesses can be heard shouting conflicting instructions at police, with some yelling, ‘Shoot that dog!’ while others shouted, ‘Don’t shoot that dog!’

The woman suffered severe injuries to her left hand and wrist, as well as her right hand and knee, Tenderloin Activities reported.

She was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where she was placed on a ventilator and remains in critical condition.

The dog died at the scene, and its remains were taken by officers from San Francisco Animal Care and Control, San Francisco Police Department told DailyMail. Its owner was not located at the scene.

The cause of the dog’s death remains unclear, although witnesses alleged that it died as a result of rough handling by police, ABC7 reported. 

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‘While the dog was being restrained, the dog became unresponsive and was declared deceased on scene,’ SFPD said in a statement to the DailyMail.

The identity of the woman involved in the pit bull attack has not been publicly released. There has been speculation that she is homeless and lives in the neighborhood. The incident is under investigation.

Tenderloin supervisor Bilal Mahmood addressed the incident on social media, writing: ‘This is not an isolated incident – we have regularly met and worked with families and neighbors in the TL who have experienced similar incidents with dogs in the streets over the last year.’

‘Earlier this year, we worked with SFPD Tenderloin Station on a Paw Patrol pilot to increase both enforcement and education in the neighborhood, and we will be working with SFPD again in the weeks ahead to identify similar efforts to increase enforcement and keep our communities safe.’

The San Francisco Police Department has a separate Dangerous Dogs Unit, which recently resumed its regularly scheduled hearings following a ten-month hiatus prompted by a lack of funding, according to the SF Standard. 

The hearings, referred to by locals as ‘dog court,’ were established in response to the Diane Whipple case, a tragic incident in which a woman was mauled to death by two presa canarios, according to Officer Greg Sutherland. 

Since January, the Dangerous Dogs Unit has received 729 reports of dog bites, Sutherland told the Daily Mail. Last year, the unit received 1,027 reports.

According to Sutherland, around 30-40 percent of the bites occur in the Tenderloin. 

The neighborhood is home to a significant portion of San Francisco’s homeless population, many of whom keep dogs for companionship and protection, according to the Mission Local. 

Before the dog court hearings resumed this past July, the unit had a backlog of 66 cases, the SF Standard reported. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to San Francisco and Tenderloin officials for further comment.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino used a Fox News appearance to denounce Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s expected presence at the city’s 9/11 memorial, claiming it would send “a message to Osama bin Laden that, look, ‘We conquered New York.’”

Paladino, 71, made the anti-Muslim comment while speaking with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

The conservative Queens lawmaker had been attacking Mamdani, 34, over a recent 9/11-related signing ceremony in which Ramzi Kassem, a former attorney for an al-Qaeda operative, was allowed to participate. Paladino specifically criticized Mamdani for giving Kassem one of the pens used to sign an executive order recognizing the terror attack.

“I am sick to death of all of this,” Paladino told Ingraham, after the host opened the segment by declaring, “Symbols matter.”

“We need to be able to see through this total, absolute farce that they’re trying to pawn off on New Yorkers and across the country,” Paladino added.

She called the handing of the ceremonial pen to Kassem, Mamdani’s chief counsel, ‘cryptic.’

‘But it was a message.

‘The same way it’s a message when [Mamdani] goes down to [the] 9/11 [25th anniversary commemoration ceremony].’

Paladino went on to warn, ‘I hate to even say this, Laura,’ before making the remark about Bin Laden.

‘That’s how scary all of this really is to each and every one of us.

‘New Yorkers need to wake up. [Mamdani] won this election not with born-and-bred New Yorkers. He won this election with transplants, ages 18 to 30 years old, making promises he could never keep.’

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The councilwoman declared she was ‘furious,’ before Ingraham pointed out that the mayor’s approval scores have been, to her surprise, noticeably high.

‘Is that surprising to you, or do you think no one is answering the surveys or what?’ she asked Paladino, who is leading a group of 9/11 family members in a protest of the mayor’s plans to attend the commemoration ceremony on the Memorial Plaza this Friday.

‘Look. You got to find out who is surveying. All right?’ Paladino said. ‘[Mamdani] is not surveying people like myself, average, middle white, working class people.’

‘He’s not doing that. He is tending his nest with these young people.’

A Siena University poll, conducted in late June, showed Mamdani with an approval rating of 58 percent with 26 percent disapproval. The school has no affiliation with Mamdani.

Other polls in recent months have shown similar results.

Mamdani beat out then-candidate Andrew Cuomo in November 2025, after defeating the disgraced former governor in the Democratic primaries.

The primary win was widely seen as an upset, as Cuomo received endorsements from dozens of high-profile Democrats – and even Republicans.

The cornerstone of the former state assemblyman’s campaign was affordability, despite previous statements rooted in democratic socialism.

The memorial event later this week, meanwhile, is exclusively for 9/11 victims’ families and will consist of the traditional reading of the names. Friday marks 25 years since the devastating attacks. 

Bin Laden was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the attacks. He was killed by US Navy SEALs in a 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.