Distressed 911 callers struggled to describe the terrifying scene after a Learjet crashed in Florida, with one witness telling dispatchers it sounded as if a “bomb” had exploded, according to audio obtained by News Media.
The Learjet 60 took off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at about 10:37 a.m. Nov. 1, bound for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. Just before 1 p.m., the aircraft crashed in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people aboard.
In the moments after the jet came down near a heavily traveled roadway, witnesses called 911 and tried to explain the shocking sights and sounds they had encountered.
Investigators examine the site of a plane crash in Greenacres, Florida, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“There was an explosion,” one caller reported. “I think an airplane or rocket—something fell from the sky. We felt our house shake, and then we heard an explosion when we ran outside.”
She said the blast resembled a “bomb explosion” and added that the electricity in her home went out briefly before returning.
After stepping outside, the caller said she saw sparks and smoke. “It was black, it was dark, like it was burning,” she told the dispatcher.
The emergency calls were placed at approximately 12:51 p.m., moments after the crash.
Adam Robinson and his wife, Helen Sharp, were traveling with their two young children when the Learjet carrying them from Texas to the Bahamas crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Nov. 1. (Fox News)
The witness initially wondered whether the boom had been caused by lightning, but said it did not sound like ordinary thunder. “It was like … an explosion sound,” she recalled.
The crash claimed the lives of Austin technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45; his wife, Helen Sharp, 40; their children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; the family’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina; and Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
The two pilots, Jeffrey Gregory and Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, also died.
A map traces the Learjet’s route from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas toward the Bahamas before the aircraft crashed in Greenacres, Florida. (Fox News)
Severe rain and thunderstorms were moving through South Florida when the Learjet crashed. Federal investigators have said the stormy conditions will be a central part of the investigation.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that investigators had recovered the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder.
“NTSB investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Learjet 60 that crashed on Nov. 1 near Greenacres, Florida,” the agency said in a post on X.
Investigators found the cockpit voice recorder near the aircraft’s initial impact site and are examining it at the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C. (NTSB)
The recorder was located at the point where the Learjet first struck the ground. It will now be analyzed at the NTSB’s Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C.