Apocalyptic footage has captured the massive, fiery crater left in a Florida street after a private jet plunged from the sky, killing all nine people aboard. Investigators are also examining the doomed pilot’s final communications for possible clues to the cause of the tragedy.
The Learjet was flying from Texas to the Bahamas when it dropped roughly 27,000 feet in a single minute before striking the ground “like a missile” in Palm Beach County on Sunday.
Dramatic videos posted online show a large hole torn into the roadway, with wreckage scattered across the street and flames surging from the crater as thick smoke rose into the air.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Minutes before the disaster, however, the pilot reported icing conditions and later made a distressing Mayday call.
The as-yet-unidentified female pilot told Miami air traffic controllers that ice was building up on the aircraft while the outside temperature stood at -47 degrees Celsius.
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National Transportation Safety Board investigators have previously highlighted the serious risks of flying in icy conditions.
In 2024, the agency issued a safety alert warning that ice can “cause flight instruments to cease operating,” potentially leaving aircraft unable to “maintain level flight.”
The $2 million Learjet 60 had departed from Austin before nosediving near a mobile home community in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, less than eight miles from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Authorities have not yet released the identities of the nine people who died.
Outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the crash as “cataclysmic.”