A plane with two people on it crashes in Philadelphia, and sets several homes on fire
An Aircraft-Jet Collision with an Army Medical Jet in Philadelphia, Va., Two Days after the First Flight from the United States
A medical transport jet crashed in Philadelphia about 30 seconds after takeoff, setting homes ablaze and launching a fireball into the night sky. Two people were on board, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The crash is two days after the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in 25 years. An American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in midair Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., with an Army helicopter carrying three soldiers. No one survived that crash.
After leaving Philadelphia, the plane appeared on radar to be a flight that had just left. It was en route to Springfield, Missouri, and registered to a company operating as Med Jets, according to the flight tracking website Flight Aware.
The Flaring of a Philadelphia Neighborhood During a Jet-Rescue Event on Friday, April 24th, 2019, 5:30 p.m. Michael Schiavone
Michael Schiavone heard a bang and his house shook as he was sitting at his home in Mayfair. He said it felt like an earthquake and that it looked like a missile was about to hit his house. I thought we were under attack after the explosion, he said.
Flight data showed a small jet taking off from the airport at 6:06 p.m. and disappearing from radar about 30 seconds later after climbing to an altitude of 1,600 feet.
The Northeast Philadelphia Airport is less than four miles from Roosevelt Mall. City officials said the plane was in the air for a brief time before it went down.
Jim Quinn, 56, lives about a half-mile from the crash site. He heard the crash while he was leaving his home. “All we heard was a loud roar and didn’t know where it was coming from. We just turned around and saw the big plume.”
The plane’s owner, Jet Rescue, provides global air ambulance services. The company, based in Mexico, 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.
Federal and local authorities are investigating the crash of a small plane near a shopping center in northeast Philadelphia on Friday night which killed all six people aboard the aircraft and one person on the ground.
One person on the ground was confirmed dead at the press conference. The person is in a car. She didn’t say how many of the injured were in critical condition.
“This is still a very active and fluid situation,” Thiel said at the press conference. “It will likely be days or more until we are able to definitively answer the question about the number of folks who perished in this tragedy and the outcome for those who are injured.”
Eyewitnesses saw an explosion in the shape of a mushroom cloud, member station WHYY reported. There were videos and photos of the aftermath that showed a long stretch of a Philadelphia neighborhood in flames. Five fires erupted following the crash and have since been extinguished, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson said Saturday.
A Child Died from a Flying Air Ambulance in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) during the Decay of a Child
“It’s possible that if you are somewhere not even near here, somewhere between this location and Northeast Airport, you may go out and find something in your yard,” he said.
The child patient had finished treatment for an illness at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and was returning to her home country, according to the hospital.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, a company that provides air ambulance services in Mexico, Latin America and the U.S., flew six people in a Learjet 55.
Shai Gold, the spokesperson for Jet Rescue, told NPR that the company was contracted by a third-party charitable organization to bring the child home to Tijuana, Mexico.
Among those on board were a pilot, copilot, doctor and paramedic, Gold added. No names will be released until all the families have been notified, the company said.
“So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls have been lost. Our people are totally engaged. First responders are being credited with doing a good job. More to come. God Bless you all,” he wrote on Truth Social.
