By AMY TAXIN Associated Press
A business jet crashed into a South Florida neighborhood and erupted into a ball of flames, killing all nine people on board and leaving a fiery crater. The cause was not immediately clear, but federal investigators are expected to provide an update Monday.
Video recorded by passersby captured the terrifying moment on Sunday afternoon when the Bahamas-bound aircraft plunged from the sky before slamming into the ground and exploding in Green Acres, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) southwest of West Palm Beach. Flames flickered around chunks of pavement lining the crater as shocked residents looked on in horror. Thick black smoke engulfed the crash site.
“Debris was everywhere. Debris hit my house. Everything was on fire. The road was on fire,” Anthony Blackmon, who lives near the crash site, told NBC affiliate WTVJ. “I’ve always seen it on the news, never thought it would happen so close to somebody like how it happened today.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said there were no immediate reports of anyone on the ground injured or killed. Authorities have not released the names of the people who died.
Palm Beach County authorities were evacuating about 600 people from a nearby mobile home community while the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board investigate the crash.
Authorities have not provided any information about what caused the Bahamas-bound Learjet 60 to crash. NTSB officials planned to hold a news conference in West Palm Beach on Monday.
The jet began its journey at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas, and airport spokesperson Jim Reynolds described it as a private aircraft. He could not immediately provide details about who was on board.
The plane was heading east at 35,000 feet (about 11 kilometers) when the pilot started to report problems.
The pilot said ice was accumulating on the jet and that turbulence was jolting it by as much as 700 feet (213 meters), according to air traffic control recordings captured by LiveATC.net. Rain pounded the region on Sunday.
“We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” the pilot told controllers.
The situation rapidly deteriorated.
The pilot requested permission to climb another 2,000 feet (about 610 meters) then quickly declared an emergency as the jet lost altitude at an alarming rate.
“We’re descending 8,000 — mayday, mayday — we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute,” the pilot radioed.
“We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute,” the pilot radioed, before delivering a devastating acknowledgment of what was about to happen. “We’re going to crash into the ground.”
The plane banked sharply to the right before crashing and exploding.
“It was a cataclysmic plane crash,” DeSantis told reporters at the scene. “It looked like a missile going down and left a big crater on the side of the road.”
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Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California. Associated Press transportation writer Josh Funk in Gretna, Nebraska, contributed.