A medical transport jet carrying a child patient, her mother, and four others crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after takeoff on Friday, with the incident leaving homes and cars in flames.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, which operated the Learjet 55, said in a statement: “We cannot confirm any survivors.” There was no immediate word whether anyone on the ground was killed.
All six people aboard were from Mexico. The child had been treated in Philadelphia for a life-threatening condition and was being transported home, according to Jet Rescue spokesperson Shai Gold. The flight’s final destination was to have been Tijuana after a stop in Missouri.
The patient and her mother were on board along with four crew members. Gold said this was a seasoned crew and everyone involved in these flights goes through rigorous training.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a news conference late Friday that officials expected fatalities in the “awful aviation disaster.”
“We know that there will be loss,” he said.
The plane quickly disappeared from radar after taking off from the airport at 6:06 p.m. and climbing to an altitude of 1,600 feet. It was registered to a company operating as Med Jets, according to the flight tracking website Flight Aware.
The plane crashed in a busy intersection near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping center in the densely populated neighborhood of Rhawnhurst. The crash happened less than 3 miles from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, which primarily serves business jets and charter flights.
Video shared on social media shows the plane streaking toward the ground before a massive explosion lights up the evening sky.
Other footage shows black smoke billowing from what appears to be burning plane wreckage on a city street, with debris littering the ground and stunned onlookers on the street.
Another video shows police cordoning off the scene as firefighters deal with multiple fires.
The Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management referred to the crash as a “major incident.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on social media that the plane was en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri.
Duffy added that both the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would investigate.
Jet Rescue, which provides global air ambulance services, flew baseball Hall of Famer David Ortiz to Boston after he was shot in the Dominican Republic in 2019 and was involved in transporting patients critically ill with COVID-19.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the NTSB and the FAA with requests for additional information.
The crash occurred just days after an American Airlines passenger plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair near Reagan National Airport, resulting in 67 fatalities.
