CHICAGO — Nine people were killed after a Learjet crashed and erupted in a fireball on Sunday afternoon in a residential area in Palm Beach County, Florida, US transportation officials said.
The private jet had taken off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Videos on social media showed the jet slamming into the ground next to a road and exploding
The crash is the second deadliest in the United States this year, according to National Transportation Safety Board records, following June’s skydiving plane crash in Butler, Missouri, which killed 12.
Officials have not identified the nine people who were aboard the plane or said how many were passengers and crew.
“It looked like a missile going down,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said of the crash.
There are no reports of anyone on the ground being killed, but the crash did create a significant debris field, the governor said.
About 600 people are in need of shelter on the ground because the crash scene is blocking the entrance to a mobile home park and residents can’t stay there, a county official said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who confirmed the deaths, called the crash a “horrific tragedy.”
The Federal Aviation Administration and NTSB will investigate the crash, the FAA said.
NTSB investigators will arrive at the site Sunday and Monday. A news conference is also planned for Monday.
Sunday’s incident is the worst crash involving a Learjet 60, according to data from the Flight Safety Foundation. In 2008, four people were killed when a Learjet 60 bound for Los Angeles crashed on takeoff from Columbia, South Carolina.
The Learjet 60 was flying to the Bahamas from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, according to the FAA. It is registered to an LLC in Delaware, according to FAA records, and is listed as available for charter online.
Learjets are synonymous with private flying. Bill Lear’s iconic Lear 23 caught on with the rich and famous shortly after its introduction in the 1960s. The brand was most recently made by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier. The company discontinued making new Learjets in 2021, but continues to support them.
Minutes before the crash, the pilot of the plane reported ice accumulating on the aircraft, an outside air temperature of -47 degrees Celsius, and moderate turbulence, bouncing the plane by up to 700 feet, according to a recording of air traffic control radio calls captured by LiveATC.net.
“We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” the pilot radioed the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Minutes before the crash, the pilot of the plane reported ice accumulating on the aircraft, an outside air temperature of -47 degrees Celsius, and moderate turbulence.
But moments later, after reporting precipitation started to fall and requesting to climb, they declared an emergency.
“We’re descending 8,000 – mayday, mayday – we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute,” the pilot said. “We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute … We’re going to crash into the ground.”
The jet descended 27,000 feet over the course of one minute, just before flight tracking data cut off, the website ADS-B Exchange shows.
There were scattered storms in the area at the time of the crash, and the plane passed through a stronger storm cell a few minutes before it began descending. It is unclear if the storm contributed to the crash but at the time, the flight was in an area where the FAA had warned of thunderstorms and threats to aircraft, known as a convective SIGMET.
Ice on wings and other surfaces can pose a major threat to private jets. In January 2024, the NTSB published a safety alert underscoring the risks of in-flight icing conditions, which can cause pilots to lose control. The agency warned ice can “make managing the airplane’s flightpath and airspeed more difficult and can prevent the airplane from maintaining level flight.”
The road is buckled where the plane slammed into it, creating a crater, video from CNN affiliate WPBF showed.
The crash occurred near Military Trail, between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
All northbound and southbound lanes of Military Trail are closed until further notice, officials said, and motorists are advised to avoid the area and seek alternate routes.
About 600 people are in need shelter because of the damage on the ground, said Joel Flores, Palm Beach County commissioner for District 3, who was the first county official at the scene. The residents are being sent to two shelters in the county while the site is being investigated, he said.
“I heard and felt the boom,” Andrew Mannino told CNN. “The power immediately went out and is still out.”
He said he smelled the smoke and “saw a large black cloud immerse in the air.”
The crash site is about four miles south of the airport in West Palm Beach, which was renamed for President Donald Trump earlier this year. It’s also about eight miles southwest of Mar-A-Lago. Trump was in West Palm Beach earlier Sunday, but departed the airport on Air Force One a little more than one hour before this crash.
Dash cam video showing the crash is going to be important to investigators piecing together what happened, said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the Transportation Department.
The airport is a good place to wait out the bad weather, Schiavo told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield Sunday. “That is not a controlled descent. That is a descent where literally you’re exceeding that the speed of the plane on descent. You’re exceeding the descent rate. So at that point, it’s clear whatever happened, they had lost control of the plane.”
The steep descent could have taken parts off the plane, and the flight recorder could have been destroyed in the explosion, Schiavo added.
It’s not clear if the plane had a cockpit voice recorder on board, which could provide key details to NTSB investigators. FAA regulations require jet aircraft with more than one engine to carry a voice recorder, but only if they are flown for hire. Records show the airplane was made available for charter flights.
Source: Saudi Gazette