On Monday morning, a turboprop aircraft on a mission to deliver hurricane aid to Jamaica met a tragic end. It crashed into a pond within a gated community in Coral Springs, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, leading to the loss of two lives. The plane narrowly avoided crashing into nearby homes, as confirmed by local authorities and a resident of the area.

The Coral Springs Police Department announced the fatalities in a statement released later that day. However, they withheld further information about those on board and did not respond immediately to inquiries for additional details.

Deputy Chief Mike Moser of the Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department reported that emergency teams were on the scene just minutes after receiving the crash alert. Initially focused on rescue operations, they transitioned to recovery after failing to locate any victims. While no residences were harmed, some debris was found near the retention pond, according to Moser. Aerial footage from local news showed a damaged fence in a yard adjacent to the crash site.

“The plane itself was not visible,” Moser noted. “Rescue teams followed the debris trail leading to the water. Divers entered the pond to search for victims but came up empty-handed.”

Kenneth DeTrolio recounted to the South Florida Sun Sentinel how he and his wife experienced the crash. The plane smashed through their backyard, demolishing their fence and uprooting palm trees before plunging into the pond. Debris littered their yard, and their pool and back porch were tainted with spilled fuel.

The stench of fuel was overpowering in their home, lingering for several hours before finally dissipating, DeTrolio mentioned.

“We heard the strangest sound. I never heard anything like it before, and apparently that was when this plane must have flown between my home and my neighbor’s house,” DeTrolio told the newspaper.

Officials cautioned residents that police would maintain a significant presence in the area throughout Monday and Tuesday as investigators continue collecting evidence.

Broward County, where the plane took off from and where the crash occurred, is home to a vibrant Caribbean American community that sprang into action to collect relief supplies following Hurricane Melissa. A powerful Category 5 hurricane, Melissa slammed into Jamaica late last month, leaving a path of destruction.

Moser said police would take over recovery efforts, and federal aviation officials would investigate the cause of the crash.

The small Beechcraft King Air plane took off from the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at approximately 10:14 a.m., according to a spokesperson for the City of Fort Lauderdale, which owns and operates the airport. The crash occurred soon after takeoff, with Coral Springs police officers and firemen responding at 10:19 a.m., just five minutes later.

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane was manufactured in 1976. King Air models can seat between seven and 12 people, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Federal records showed the registered owner of the plane is listed as International Air Services, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-U.S. citizens that enable them to register their aircraft with the FAA. A person who answered the company’s phone Monday afternoon declined to answer questions from a reporter, stating “no comment” and ending the phone call.

The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to or from Jamaica in the past week, traveling between George Town in the Cayman Islands and Montego Bay and Negril in Jamaica, before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. It was not immediately clear who was organizing the trips.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28, tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history. The storm also caused devastation in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and prompted relief organizations to mobilize.

Local government officials in Jamaica said in the days after the storm that Melissa had ripped the roofs off 120,000 structures, affecting some 90,000 families in the island’s especially hard-hit western region. A week after Melissa’s landfall in Jamaica, more than 2,000 people were still reported to be in shelters.