A medical transportation with a patient child and five others on board crashed in a district of Philadelphia shortly after takeoff on Friday evening, exploding in a fireball that swallowed up several houses.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said that the patient and another passenger were on board with four crew members.
“We cannot confirm any survivors,” the company said in a statement. “Our immediate concern is for the patient’s family, our staff, their families and other victims who may have been injured in the field.”
Mayor Cherrelle Parker said on Wednesday evening at a press conference that information on death was not immediately known, but several houses and vehicles had been damaged.
“It is always an active scene under investigation,” she said.
The accident occurred only two days after the deadliest American air disaster of a generation. On Wednesday evening, an American Airlines plane carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in the air in Washington, DC, with an army helicopter carrying three soldiers. There were no survivors in this accident.
Above Philadelphia, a door camera captured images of the plane plunging into a sequence of whites and exploding while it was touching the floor near a shopping center and a major road.
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“Everything we heard was a strong roar and I didn’t know where it came from. We just turned around and saw the big panache, “said Jim Quinn, the owner of the doorbell.
The accident occurred less than 4.8 kilometers from the northeast airport of Philadelphia, which mainly serves business jets and charter flights.
The plane, a Learjet 55, quickly disappeared from the radar after taking off from the airport at 6:06 p.m. and climbed at an altitude of 1,600 feet (487 meters). He was on his way to Springfield, Missouri, and signed up for a company operating as Med Jets, according to the Flight Aware Flight website.
President Donald Trump posted on the social media platform Truth Social, it was “so sad” to see the crash.
“More innocent souls have lost,” he said. “Our people are totally committed.”
Governor Josh Shapiro said he offered all “Commonwealth resources when they respond to the small private plane crash in northeast Philly”.
A continuous flow of police vehicles and fire trucks was initially paid in the premises, taking charge of commercial parking lots as emergency respondents to the accident and managed people and set up blocks of the perimeter in each direction. In about an hour, the cry of the sirens and shouted orders had faded in relative calm on the edges of the closed area, and the darkness settled while the drivers passing while looking at trying to see what passed.
The plane crashed in an animated intersection near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping center in the densely populated district of Rhawnhurst.
A mobile phone video taken by a witness a few moments after the plane has shown a chaotic scene with debris scattered through the intersection. An orange wall shone just beyond the intersection while a plume of black smoke quickly got up in the sky and the sirens climbed.
Friday, Michael Schiavone, 37, was sitting at his home in Mayfair, a neighboring neighborhood, when he heard a big blow and his house shook. He said it was like a mini earthquake and when he checked his images of security cameras at home, he said he seemed that a missile stopped.
“There was a big explosion, so I thought we were attacked for a second,” he said.
The owner of the plane, Jet Rescue, provides global air ambulance services. The company, based in Mexico, piloted the temple of the David Ortiz baseball renowned in Boston after being killed in the Dominican Republic in 2019 and was involved in the transport of seriously sick patients with COVID-19.
The FAA said that the National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation. The NTSB, which is investigating air accidents, said it was collecting information on the accident.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press