The aircraft barely missed two factories, a commercial building, and the Budweiser Distribution Center in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida between the populated residential suburbs of Miami Springs and Doral.

Inside one of the cars in the parking lot sat a 34-year-old man named Renato Alvarez who had just arrived back at his shop in the mini-mall after picking up lunch for his wife and himself.

He was unable to make it out of the car and was caught up in the fireball that engulfed the multi-lane avenue, field, and parking lot.

[4][10] Five people were killed in total: the three aircrew members, a company security guard on the flight, and the man in the parking lot.

Some relevant documentation was recovered from garbage receptacles, causing a criminal investigation to be opened and ultimately leading to charges including destruction and covering-up of evidence.

Pallets are held by rails at the sides from moving in an upward direction, but only the retractable end locks can stop the forward-and-aft movement.

Also, the aircraft was approximately 6,000 pounds (2,700 kg) overloaded, although, given the pallet weighing process, this was believed to be more common than thought beforehand.

The "probable cause" reads: The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident, which resulted from the airplane being misloaded to produce a more aft center of gravity and a correspondingly incorrect stabilizer trim setting that precipitated an extreme pitch-up at rotation, was (1) the failure of Fine Air to exercise operational control over the cargo loading process; and (2) the failure of Aeromar to load the airplane as specified by Fine Air.