Burned shells of abandoned cars and metal debris sat scattered along the charred streets. Soot stained homes that had been engulfed in flames. A crater in a sidewalk outside a Macy’s department store smoldered.
Residents in Northeast Philadelphia on Saturday stood in disbelief at the devastation they witnessed in their neighborhood after a small medical plane crashed the previous night near a shopping center. At least seven people — everyone onboard and one person on the ground — were killed, and at least 19 others were injured.
“Six o’clock at night — this place is packed,” said William Vitelli, 55, the owner of a used auto parts store, who lives not far from the crash site. “Now it’s a crime scene. It looks like a movie was shot here. It’s just chaos.”
Investigators are seeking answers on why the medical transport plane plunged out of the sky, less than a minute after it took off with a pediatric patient and her mother. It was the second aviation tragedy to rattle the country this week, after nearly 70 people were killed in a Wednesday midair collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington.
“This is scary to have this plane crash and the one in Washington, D.C., happen in such quick succession,” said Anish Philip, 40, a software engineer, as he stood behind police lines with his two young daughters on Saturday morning. “I would like to believe that the skies are safe, but this is making me question that.”
While the wreckage in Washington was limited to the waters of the Potomac, the crash in Philadelphia happened over a series of residential blocks and businesses. The fiery explosion of the crash sent debris, including pieces of the plane, flying into homes and at least one diner. Officials on Saturday said property damage extended across a four- to six-block area.
Local authorities said that the plane, a Learjet 55, was transporting a young pediatric patient and her mother, as well as a four-person flight crew, from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport. The flight was scheduled to head to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, before heading to its final destination in Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico confirmed that all six onboard were from Mexico.
The young girl had been in treatment for about four months at Shriners Children’s in Philadelphia, said Mel Bower, a spokesman for the hospital. Citing patient confidentiality, he added only that it was for a condition that could not be easily treated in Mexico.
“It’s really just an unthinkable tragedy for us,” he said, adding that she had formed deep relationships with both staff and other patients during her time at the hospital.
Investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board were at the site of the crash on Saturday, and local officials in Pennsylvania cautioned that the toll of the destruction could still climb as investigators combed through the area.
The neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia is built around, and spreads from, Roosevelt Boulevard, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Philadelphia. The area is choked with rowhouses, apartment complexes, strip malls, and mom-and-pop businesses. It is also home to numerous police officers and firefighters.
Residents there saw “carnage in their communities, saw fuselage, saw destruction and saw things that no one should ever have to experience in their neighborhoods,” Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania said at a news conference.
Afterward, neighbors were still grappling with the scope of the damage. Andre Boldin, 40, a property manager, stared at a hole left behind by the plane crash only about a hundred yards away while standing behind police tape.
“It looked like a mushroom cloud when it happened, very hot and very high,” said Mr. Boldin, who lives just blocks away from the crash site. “It sucked the air out of everything.”
At the Four Seasons Diner, a rectangular piece of metal pierced a window in the explosion, leaving a hole now covered by a strip of cardboard. Video from the diner showed a man tumbling out of his booth as his black ball cap blew off his head after being struck in the forehead by the metal.
“I’m still shaken,” said Odalis Acosta, 29, a waitress who served customers Friday night and who picked up the metal object. “My nerves are bad. My stomach’s upset. It’s so sad that so many lives were lost.”
Several roads remained closed on Saturday because of the debris, and officials asked people to avoid touching anything that appeared to have come from the plane. A shelter had also been set up for residents whose homes had been affected by the explosion.
Top House lawmakers on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee issued a joint statement acknowledging that the Philadelphia crash happened during an “already heartbreaking moment for our aviation system and the flying public.”
They warned, however, against speculating what caused the crash.
Some aviation experts cautioned against conflating the two aviation crashes without additional information, noting that there is most likely a difference between two aircraft colliding and a single small plane falling out of the sky.
But David Soucie, a former mechanic and Federal Aviation Administrator, acknowledged that the two recent crashes can be difficult for many people to absorb.
“Risk is very personal,” he said. “The chance of dying in a plane crash is less than getting hit by lightning on a Thursday morning when there’s no clouds in the sky. But those millions and millions to one odds are 100 percent if it happens to me.”
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