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A Learjet plummeted into a neighbourhood in southern Florida miles from US President Donald Trump’s resort home on Sunday, killing all nine people on board, officials said.
Several unverified clips posted to social media depicting the deadly crash showed an aircraft nearly vertical slamming at high speed into the ground, creating a large fireball and leaving a flaming crater near a busy roadside.
“Today’s plane crash in Palm Beach County, Florida is a horrific tragedy,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement, confirming that all nine people on the aircraft were killed.
Duffy said the plane, a Learjet 60, had departed from Austin, Texas and was headed for the Bahamas.
The crash occurred near Cresthaven, a neighbourhood in Palm Beach County that is less than 11 kilometres from Trump’s resort home Mar-a-Lago.
“Obviously this is a cataclysmic plane crash,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters near the scene.
“It looked like a missile going down,” he said, adding there were no reports of anyone on the ground being injured.
Trump had been at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday but departed from the nearby and newly renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport shortly after he boarded Air Force One at 11:55 am (1755 CET), about an hour before the Learjet crash.
The plane came down near the entrance to a mobile home park, Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores said, noting about 600 residents were evacuated and relocated to shelters.
“The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate” the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Storms had been reported in the area. Trump carried an umbrella as he boarded Air Force One.
In an audio recording posted to air traffic website liveatc.net, someone in the cockpit can be heard reporting “moderate turbulence” and saying the crew was “managing the ice.”
The person said the plane was “picking up precipitation” and needed “to climb” shortly before saying: “Mayday, mayday, we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute.”
Seconds later, the person said they were “declaring an emergency” as the plane descended 20,000 feet per minute.
“We’re going to crash into the ground,” the person said, shortly before communications stopped.
Additional sources • AFP