Yesterday afternoon, a Learjet 60 business jet came down on Military Trail in Palm Beach County, Florida, killing all nine people aboard. The crash happened around 12:50 p.m. on Sunday, November 1, near the Greenacres mobile home community, about nine miles from Mar-a-Lago, while thunderstorms were moving through the area. Nobody on the ground was hurt, but the impact left a large crater in the middle of a six-lane road and a fireball that drivers captured on their dashcams.
The clip below is a compilation of dashcam and witness video from the crash, with the audio from the cockpit over the final section. It is short, and it is one of the hardest pieces of crash footage I have ever sat through.
The cockpit’s final calls
Air traffic control audio released after the crash gives the last minutes of the flight a voice. As the BBC reported, someone in the cockpit first spoke of “moderate turbulence” and said the crew was “managing the ice.” Moments later the jet was “picking up precipitation,” and the crew said “we need to climb.” The flight data tells the rest: the aircraft was descending at 10,000 feet per minute, then, in the cockpit’s own words, in an “overspeed condition descending 20,000 ft per minute.” The last words heard were “we are going to crash into the ground,” followed, about thirty-five seconds after the first mayday, by “we’re out of time.”
What we know so far
- The aircraft was a Learjet 60, a light business jet.
- It had departed Austin, Texas, and was headed to the Bahamas, the FAA said.
- The crash site is on Military Trail, a six-lane road with businesses and restaurants, near Cresthaven and the Greenacres mobile home park, about nine miles from Mar-a-Lago.
- All nine people aboard were killed. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called it a “horrific tragedy.”
- Palm Beach County Fire Rescue declared a mass casualty incident.
- No one on the ground was killed or injured, as of the first reports.
- Thunderstorms were in the area at the time, and it was raining heavily when officials held their first press conference.
A community without its road
The impact damaged local infrastructure, including water lines, and about 600 residents of a nearby mobile home community were evacuated. Military Trail is expected to stay closed for at least 30 days while crews assess the damage. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, after watching the dashcam video, described it as “like a missile coming down, and a massive explosion, debris going everywhere.”
What happens next
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with an FAA team at the scene. The cause is not yet known. I will keep this post updated as the investigation develops — for now, this is what the cameras and the radio caught.
The BBC’s full report (opens in a new tab) has more detail on the scene and the responses from Palm Beach County officials.
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