Nine Killed When a Learjet Out of Austin Plunges Into a Florida Neighborhood
The Learjet 60 left Austin-Bergstrom on Sunday bound for the Bahamas. At about 12:50 p.m. Eastern it fell almost vertically into a Palm Beach County road, killing all nine people aboard, scattering debris across a mobile home neighborhood and leaving some 600 residents unable to get home.
Nine people were killed on Sunday when a Learjet 60 that had taken off from Austin crashed into a residential neighborhood in Palm Beach County, Florida, plunging into a road and exploding into a fireball. The aircraft came down at about 12:50 p.m. Eastern near Military Trail and 10th Avenue North, in an unincorporated area between Greenacres and Palm Springs, the Federal Aviation Administration said. All nine people on board died, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed, calling the crash a horrific tragedy. As far as officials knew on Sunday evening, nobody on the ground had been killed or injured.
The flight's outline is established; its final minutes are the investigation's first question. The FAA said the jet departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. According to CBS News, the BBC's US partner, the pilot first told controllers the aircraft was descending at 10,000 feet per minute — a rate far beyond anything normal in flight. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, speaking at a news conference after the crash, said video of the descent was a jarring sight, describing the aircraft as coming down like a missile before a massive explosion sent debris in every direction. The impact left a crater in the middle of a residential road, sparked several fires and scattered debris across a wide area. Officials have not identified the nine people aboard, or said how many were passengers and crew, and the cause of the crash is unknown.
The ground toll is measured in displacement rather than injuries. About 600 people are in need of shelter, a county official said, because the crash scene is blocking the entrance to a mobile home park and residents cannot stay there. By the numbers federal records keep, this is the second-deadliest crash in the United States this year, after June's skydiving plane crash in Butler, Missouri, that killed 12, and the worst crash ever involving a Learjet 60, according to Flight Safety Foundation data. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, with the FAA assisting; NTSB investigators were due at the scene Sunday and Monday, with a news conference planned for Monday. For Texas, the story begins at an Austin departure gate: whatever failed, failed on a flight that started here.
