Philadelphia medical jet crash left huge hole in house, sounded like a bomb went off
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The medical jet transporting a pediatric patient and her mother left a “huge” hole in a row house as it came crashing down into a residential neighborhood on Friday night, witnesses told The Post.
The Learjet 55, with six people aboard, plummeted shortly after departing Northeast Philadelphia Airport and exploded as it smashed to the ground, sending twisted balls of metal onto the streets and torching multiple cars along Cottman Avenue, recalled Jacques Joseph.
Joseph said he was driving home when the plane fell out the sky about 200 yards away from him as he waited at a red light.
“I heard the explosion, ‘boom’, and then I saw the enormous fireball,” the 26-year-old told The Post.
“At first, I didn’t know what happened, I thought a gas tanker exploded,” he recounted.
Joseph, who believes the red light may have saved his life, got out of his car to survey the destruction.
“I saw a huge hole in a house and a building on fire,” he said.
Joseph provided The Post with a video that shows a gaping hole on the second floor of a brick home.
“People came out of their houses crying,” Joseph noted.
The Philadelphia resident also saw parts of the plane and luggage strewn about the sidewalk.
Anatolii Borisov, 29, who lives about two miles from the crash site, was taking a shower when the medevac plane went down.
“It sounded like a bomb went off,” Borisov said. “It’s crazy. I have never heard an explosion so loud.”
The fiery wreck also ignited multiple cars along Cottman Avenue, the charred remains of which could still be seen hours later.
The Learjet 55, operated by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, was heading to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri when it plummeted to the ground about a minute after taking off at 6:06 p.m., according to data on FlightRadar24.
The plane was carrying a young girl, her mother, a doctor, paramedic, pilot and a copilot, Shai Gold, spokesman for Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, told The Post.
“At this time, we cannot confirm any survivors,” Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said in a statement.
The girl was a patient of Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, the hospital confirmed to NBC 10, and was heading back home to Mexico after receiving “life-saving treatment,” Gold said.
It remains unclear what led to the crash that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called an “awful aviation disaster.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the incident.
