Apocalyptic footage captures the enormous, flaming crater carved into a Florida roadway after a private jet plunged from the sky, killing all nine people aboard. Investigators are also examining the pilot’s final communication, which could provide a crucial clue about the cause of the disaster.
The Learjet was flying from Texas to the Bahamas when it dropped roughly 27,000 feet in just one minute before slamming into Palm Beach County on Sunday “like a missile.”
Video shared online shows a huge hole torn into the street, with wreckage scattered across the road. Flames continued to rise from the crater, sending thick smoke into the sky.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Minutes before making a distressing Mayday call, however, the pilot warned that ice was building up on the aircraft.
The female pilot, whose identity has not been released, told Miami air traffic controllers that ice was accumulating on the plane while the outside temperature stood at minus 47 degrees Celsius.
CHECK THIS OUT: Lenny Kravitz Denies ‘Sick’ Rumors He Was on Doomed Learjet
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have repeatedly highlighted the serious risks aircraft face when operating in icy conditions.
In a 2024 safety alert, the agency warned that ice can “cause flight instruments to cease operating,” potentially leaving an aircraft unable to “maintain level flight.”
The $2 million Learjet 60 had departed from Austin before plunging near a mobile home community in Greenacres, Palm Beach County. The crash site was less than eight miles from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Authorities have not yet released the identities of the nine victims.
Outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the crash “cataclysmic.”
