Philadelphia – A medical transport plane with a child patient and another five on board crashed into a neighborhood of Philadelphia shortly after takeoff on Friday night, exploiting in a fireball that wrapped several houses.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said the patient and another passenger were on board along with four crew members.
“We cannot confirm any survivor,” said the company in a statement. “Our immediate concern is for the patient’s family, our staff, their families and other victims that may have been hurt in the field.”
Mayor Cherelle Parker said Wednesday night at a press conference that the information about death was not immediately known, but several houses and vehicles had been damaged.
“This is still an active scene under investigation,” he said.
The accident occurred only two days after MORE MORE MORE American Air Disaster In a generation. On Wednesday night, an American Airlines plane transports 60 passengers and four crew members It crashed in the air in Washington, DC, with an army helicopter with three soldiers. There were no survivors in that accident.
On Philadelphia, a bell chamber captured images of the plane that sank into a white streak and exploded while hitting the ground near a shopping center and a main road.
“Everything we heard was a strong roar and I didn’t know where it came from. We turned around and saw the big plume, ”said Jim Quinn, the owner of the House of Timbre.
The accident occurred less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the Northeast of Philadelphia airport, which mainly serves business aircraft and charter flights.
The plane, a Learjet 55, quickly disappeared from the radar after taking off from the airport at 6:06 pm and climbing at an altitude of 1,600 feet (487 meters). He was on his way to Springfield, Missouri, and was recorded in a company that operates as Jets Med, according to the flight monitoring website, Flight Aking.
Governor Josh Shapiro He said he is offering all the “resources of the Commonwealth while responding to the small private plane crash in the northeast of Philadelphia.”
A continuous flow of police vehicles and fire trucks initially pours into the scene, taking commercial parking lots when emergency responders to the clash and the fire directed people and established a perimeter stretch of blocks in each direction. In approximately an hour, the cry of the mermaids and the orders shouted had vanished in relative silence at the edges of the closed area, and the darkness was installed when the drivers who passed looked at trying to see what was happening.
The plane crashed into a busy intersection near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping center in the densely populated neighborhood of Rhawnhurst.
A video of a cell phone taken by a witness moments after the plane crashed showed a chaotic scene with debris scattered by the intersection. An orange wall shone just beyond the intersection when a black smoke plume quickly rose to the sky and sounded the sirens.
Michael Schiavone, 37, was sitting at his home in Mayfair, a nearby neighborhood, on Friday when he heard a strong blow and his house shook. He said he felt like a mini earthquake and when he checked the images of his home security camera, he said that a missile was going down.
“There was a great explosion, so I thought we were attacked by a second,” he said.
The owner of the plane, Jet Rescue, provides global air ambulance services. The company, based in Mexico, flew to the member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, David Ortiz, Boston after he was shot in the Dominican Republic in 2019 and participated in the transport of patients with critical diseases with COVID-19.
FAA said the National Transportation Security Board will lead the investigation. The NTSB, which investigates air accidents, said it was collecting information about the accident.
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Associated Press Rio Yamat writers Hallie Golden and Josh Cornfield contributed to this report.
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