Small Medical Jet Crashes in Philadelphia Neighborhood, Causes Fires
PHILADELPHIA — A medical jet with six people on board — including a pediatric patient — crashed Friday evening near the Roosevelt Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, erupting into a massive fireball, scattering debris throughout the streets, and setting multiple homes and cars ablaze.
In a briefing Friday night, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said there was no official number yet for how many people may have been killed or injured from the crash, but asked for the city’s prayers, and called the situation “all hands on deck.”
Droves of first responders filled the area near Bustleton and Cottman Avenues — a mix of commercial and residential, surrounded by strip shopping centers and abutting neighborhoods of rowhouses. Thick smoke hung in the air as police ushered onlookers away from the scene, and the mall was evacuated.
Six patients were being treated at Temple University Hospital’s Jeanes Campus in the Northeast, according to a spokesperson. Three of the patients were treated and released, and another three remained hospitalized in fair condition, the spokesperson said.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Learjet 55 departed from Northeast Philadelphia Airport — several miles from the mall — and crashed around 6:30 p.m. The aircraft was en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, the FAA said. Flight logs show the plane was in the air for only a minute before it crashed.
In a statement on LinkedIn, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, a medical flight company, posted that a Learjet 55 owned by the company, with the designation XA-UCI, crashed after taking off from Philadelphia. The company wrote that four crew members and two passengers, a pediatric patient and their escort, were on the plane.
Jet Rescue said it could not confirm that anyone had survived the crash, and that names of those on board the flight would not be released until family members had been notified.
”Our immediate concern is for the patient’s family, our personnel, their families and other victims that may have been hurt on the ground,” the company wrote.
Parker on Friday urged residents in the immediate area to stay inside and not interfere with the ongoing response and investigation.
The explosion rocked the surrounding neighborhood, and firefighters battled blazes in six homes on the 7200 block of Calvert Street as a result of the plane crash, according to Mike Bresnan, head of the union that represents firefighters and paramedics.
Bresnan, president of the International Brotherhood of Fire Fighters Local 22, said he wasn’t aware of any casualties from inside those homes, saying “our members got everybody out pretty quick.”
He said first responders relayed to him that the plane appeared to hit the street, that fuel or fire spread to three or four homes on the end of Calvert Street, and that the blaze jumped to several other rowhouses from there. One roof collapsed, he said, which he described as “indicative of a fuel-based fire that burned very hot and quick.”
Bresnan said firefighters also battled between six and eight car fires.
”This city is lucky it hit where it hit,” he said. “If it would have hit in the middle of the block of rowhouses, we could have lost a whole block or more. When you get jet fuel, that stuff is hard to put out.”
Rep. Jared Solomon, who represents the Northeast, told CNN Friday that the plane had taken off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport and that something went wrong as the aircraft attempted to make an emergency landing, possibly on Roosevelt Boulevard. Former Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told CNN the plane went down on Cottman Avenue, missing the mall.
Ring camera footage showed the plane plummeting out of the sky at a high rate of speed.
Aniyah White, 16, said she was on the sidewalk on Roosevelt Boulevard with a friend when they looked up and saw a plane spiraling in the sky. It was on fire, she said, and rapidly descending.
”It was coming down on fire,” she said. “Then boom. Explosion everywhere.
”The sky lit up,” she said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote on X Friday evening that he had spoken with Parker, and that his team was in contact with the city’s police, fire, and emergency management departments, and is “offering all Commonwealth resources as they respond to the small private plane crash in Northeast Philly.”
President Donald Trump wrote on X: “So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged.”
The crash in Philadelphia comes two days after a commercial plane collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington D.C., killing 67 people.
Ryan Tian, 23, of Delaware County, witnessed a huge explosion as he was getting dinner from a food truck located at a parking lot at Cottman and Bustleton.
Tian said he “saw the sky turning orange” and then a “massive fireball.”
”I thought we were getting attacked by something,” said Tian, who took several photos of the fireball that appeared to rise from a residential block.
He saw people in a panic and running and decided to “get the hell out of there.”
(Staff writers Abraham Gutman, Michelle Myers, Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.)
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