Miami airport Skytrain shut down after derailment

Miami International Airport’s Skytrain was shut down Tuesday morning after a train went off the tracks.

An employee was on board the elevated light-rail train car, but was not injured, according to the airport. The accident happened at 2 a.m. during a maintenance run.

Two of the four cars involved were damaged.

“One car went onto the roof of Concourse D and the other car is off the rail,” Miami-Dade aviation spokeswoman Suzy Trutie said in an email update.

The mile-long Skytrain people mover opened in 2010 and connects gates in Concourse D.

Skytrain will be closed all day Tuesday, Trutie said.

The shutdown comes during the busiest time of year at the airport.

A record-breaking crowd rushed through Miami International Airport last weekend.

Nearly half a million people flew in and out of Miami’s largest airport between Friday and Sunday. The high was 155,620 travelers on Saturday, with just over 147,800 fliers each for Friday and Saturday.

The same weekend last year saw between 135,000 and 143,000 people per day.

A weekend average for MIA hovers around 116,802 passengers.

Trutie said this year’s addition of nine new airlines — bringing the total to 101 — may have helped the passenger numbers climb.

“This time of the year is always a busy time for travel,” she said.

Four million people passed through the airport last year in December alone. If the fliers keep coming at this rate, Trutie said MIA could surpass 44 million travelers for 2015.

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 8:40 AM with the headline "Miami airport Skytrain shut down after derailment."