AP/PHILADELPHIA Shortly after takeoff Friday evening, a medical transport plane carrying a child who had recently finished treatment for a life-threatening ailment crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood, bursting in a fireball that devoured multiple homes. The mother and four other passengers were on board.
The Learjet 55’s operator, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, issued a statement saying, “We are unable to confirm any survivors.” At least six individuals were hospitalized for injuries, although it was not immediately clear if anyone on the ground had been killed.
The flight’s passengers were all Mexican. Jet Rescue representative Shai Gold said the child was being taken home. The jet stopped in Missouri before arriving in Tijuana.
Four crew members were on board, along with the patient and her mother. This was an experienced crew, according to Gold, and all participants in these flights undergo extensive training.
“It’s shocking and surprising when an incident like this happens,” Gold told The Associated Press. We know how important our mission is, so every penny is spent on maintaining every aircraft.
At a press conference late Friday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro stated that authorities anticipated deaths in the terrible aviation accident.
He stated, “We are aware that there will be a loss.”
According to Jennifer Reardon, a spokesman at Temple University Hospital-Jeanes, the hospital has handled six crash victims. The others were in fair condition, and three of those individuals have already been freed. She was unable to give details regarding the individuals’ injuries or the circumstances surrounding their occurrence.
The aircraft had a Mexican registration. Based in Mexico, Jet Rescue operates in the United States as well as Mexico.
Two days had passed since the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in a generation when the crash occurred. An Army helicopter carrying three soldiers and an American Airlines plane carrying 60 passengers and four crew members crashed in midair in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. No one survived.
For Jet Rescue, the Philadelphia collision was the second deadly event in 15 months. Five crew members perished in 2023 when their aircraft crashed into a mountainside after overrunning a runway in the state of Morelos in central Mexico.
A doorbell camera in Philadelphia recorded the jet plummeting in a white streak and bursting as it struck the ground close to a major road and shopping center.
We didn’t know the source of the deafening roar that we heard. Jim Quinn, who owns the doorbell camera, stated, “We just turned around and saw the big plume.”
Northeast Philadelphia Airport, which typically handles business jets and charter flights, was less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) away from the disaster site.
At 6:06 p.m., the Learjet 55 took off from the airfield and climbed to 1,600 feet (487 meters) in altitude before swiftly vanishing from radar. The flight tracking website Flight Aware states that it was registered to a business that operated under the name Med Jets.
Medevac Medservice 056 was instructed to turn right when departing by an air traffic controller just after 6 p.m., according to audio collected by LiveATC. It asks, “Are you on frequency?” after repeating the request for about 30 seconds. The controller announces, “We have a lost aircraft,” a few minutes later. We’re trying to figure out what happened because we don’t know exactly what it is. The field will be closed for the time being.
“Very sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia,” President Donald Trump wrote in a post on the social networking site Truth Social.
He added that many innocent lives were lost. Our people are fully involved.
At first, company parking lots were occupied by a constant flow of police cars and fire trucks that arrived at the scene of the collision. At the outskirts of the closed-off region, the cries of sirens and yelled commands subsided into relative silence within an hour or so, and darkness descended as oncoming traffic looked out to see what was going on.
In the crowded Rhawnhurst neighborhood, the jet crashed at a busy intersection close to Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping complex.
Moments after the collision, a witness captured a chaotic scene with debris all across the junction on a cellphone video. A column of black smoke soared into the sky, sirens sounded, and a wall of orange glowed just beyond.
Michael Schiavone, 37, was sitting in his residence in the nearby suburb of Mayfair when his house shook and he heard a huge blast. He claimed that it sounded like a miniature earthquake and that a missile appeared to have fallen when he glanced at his home security camera.
He remarked, “I thought we were under attack for a second because there was a big explosion.”
Baseball Hall of Famer David Ortiz was transported to Boston by Jet Rescue, a global air ambulance service, following his shooting in the Dominican Republic in 2019. Jet Rescue also assisted in the transportation of critically ill COVID-19 patients.
The National Transportation Safety Board will oversee the inquiry, according to the FAA. An investigator has arrived, and other officials will be there on Saturday, according to the NTSB.
By Matt Rourke and Michael Sisak The Associated Press
This report was written by Josh Cornfield, Hallie Golden, and Rio Yamat for the Associated Press.
