Learjet 60 crashes in Greenacres and bursts into flames: 9 die on board
Translated with AI from the original article in Spanish. Leer la noticia original en español
A Learjet 60 executive aircraft with nine people on board plummeted on Sunday afternoon into a residential and commercial area of Greenacres, in Palm Beach County, erupting into a giant fireball that left a smoking crater in the pavement and claimed the lives of all its occupants. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy confirmed the deaths of the nine people traveling on the aircraft and described the incident as a horrific tragedy.
Impact on Military Trail and community evacuations
The accident occurred around 12:50 p.m. on Sunday, November 1, near the intersection of Military Trail (SR 809) and 10th Avenue North, in the area bordering Greenacres and Cresthaven. Videos captured by security cameras and drivers showed the moment the twin-engine plane plunged almost vertically from the sky and exploded just inches from vehicles traveling on the road and a few meters from several homes.
Upon crashing, the plane struck a tree, downed power lines, and ruptured underground water pipes, causing fires, scattered debris, and power outages in the sector. Despite the magnitude of the explosion in a nearby mobile home park, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reported that no fatalities or injuries were reported among those on the ground, describing the event as a catastrophic impact similar to a missile strike.
As an emergency measure, local authorities evacuated nearly 600 residents from the adjacent mobile home park and set up two temporary shelters for displaced families. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO) closed both directions of Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North, warning that the thoroughfare could remain closed for at least 30 days due to severe infrastructure damage. Likewise, John I. Leonard Community High School suspended classes this Monday, November 2, as a result of the emergency.
Flight path and dramatic final minutes
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the crashed aircraft—a 22-year-old Learjet 60 with registration N722BD, registered to the corporation LR60271 LLC in Delaware—had taken off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas, bound for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas.
Air tracking and traffic control records reveal that the plane was flying east at an altitude of 35,000 feet when it encountered adverse weather conditions in South Florida, marked by heavy rain, wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour, and an active flood watch in the region. The pilots reported turbulence, icing, and precipitation, requesting authorization to climb to 37,000 feet.
Moments later, the jet entered an uncontrolled descent at a speed exceeding 20,000 to 30,000 feet per minute, plummeting from 35,250 feet to 8,750 feet in just sixty seconds. In their final emergency transmission ("mayday") to the control tower, the pilot alerted that the aircraft was suffering from an overspeed condition and warned that they were going to crash into the ground seconds before impact.
Federal investigation underway
Teams from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traveled to the disaster site in Palm Beach County to lead the official investigation. Preliminary inquiries are focusing on the recovery of the fuselage wreckage and black boxes, the analysis of air traffic control recordings, and the assessment of the impact of the thunderstorms recorded over the area at the time of the accident. So far, authorities have not released the names of the nine victims pending notification of their relatives.