Five people were killed and five others injured when an Amazon-branded cargo plane overran the runway while landing at Miami International Airport on Sunday, striking multiple vehicles before coming to rest in a field near the airport, US officials said.

The Boeing 767-300 freighter, operating as Prime Air Flight 7598 for North Carolina-based carrier 21 Air, was arriving from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it overran Runway 30 at around 2:00 pm local time (1900 GMT), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said the aircraft struck several vehicles before coming to a stop in an adjacent field, near the 2100 block of Northwest 42nd Avenue. More than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to the scene.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Raied Jadallah told a news conference that three people were taken to a trauma centre in critical condition, while two others were hospitalised.

He said crews battled a "very complex fire" involving the aircraft's engine compartments and worked to contain an active fuel leak, while a technical rescue team extricated people trapped in the struck vehicles.

Amazon confirmed one of its planes was involved. "We're heartbroken to learn that five people lost their lives in today's incident at Miami International Airport," company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement, adding Amazon would "cooperate fully with any investigation."

The crash triggered a roughly three-hour ground stop at the airport, disrupting about 250 flights, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it was gathering information on the crash, and the FAA said it would investigate.

Flightradar24 data showed the aircraft, built in 1994, flew as a passenger jet for over two decades before it converted into a freighter in 2015.

Sources: CNN/NBC/ABC/CBS/FAA/Amazon