A Palm Beach County official who walked the crash site is pushing for emergency aid after a Learjet 60 obliterated a roadway feet from a mobile home park, leaving hundreds displaced and a grim cleanup that has kept residents locked out for days.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores, whose District 3 covers the Green Acres community, told The Post he saw wreckage piled on rooftops after the jet tore into Military Trail near Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres shortly before 1 p.m. Sunday. The aircraft, carrying nine people from Austin to the Bahamas, gouged a crater into the pavement and torched the roadway. Everyone on board was killed.
“I was on the site, and all I could see was debris on them. I don’t know if anything penetrated the structure itself, but there was debris there on the rooftops,” Flores said. He added that the jet struck nothing but asphalt and sidewalk, with no cars passing at the moment of impact.
The homes closest to the blast, Lots 3 and 5, stand just steps from where the Learjet came down. Neither was struck head-on. Flores likened it to a “miracle” that no one else was impacted. “None of the homes were directly impacted other than debris,” he said.
The near miss did little for the park’s residents, who were cleared out wholesale Sunday and bused to a shelter at the Greenacres Community Center. “We estimate that it’s anywhere between 400 to 600 individuals, we don’t have a precise number,” Flores said. The American Red Cross set up cots and blankets, and the county trucked in portable showers. By Monday, “there’s approximately 40 that are remaining,” Flores noted, with most evacuees bunking with friends or family.
The holdup is grim. Investigators are combing a half-mile debris field for evidence and remains, and nothing moves until they’re done.
“There’s pieces of the body parts everywhere,” Stephanie, a representative for the park’s management office, told The Post.
“Unfortunately, what we don’t know is when they’re going to be able to get back into their homes, because it’s still a scene, an accident scene or a crime scene, and they’re combing through all the evidence and body remains,” Flores added.
The nine people killed aboard the doomed jet included Austin tech mogul Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen, their two young children, the family’s nanny and two close friends. Robinson founded and ran software firms Retention.com and RB2B, and cut his teeth on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, according to his LinkedIn. The $2 million aircraft was flown by Jeff Gregory, 55, a veteran pilot from Pennsylvania, alongside 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras of Florida, who earned her pilot’s license as a high school student.
Residents fled with little more than the clothes on their backs, and many ran outside to gawk at the wreckage only to be locked out of their own street. Their cars and work trucks are frozen in place as evidence. “They’re not able to grab their belongings. They’re not able to move their vehicles,” Flores said, recalling his Monday morning visit to the shelter. “And a lot of them were asking, ‘Hey, what’s going to happen? I need to go to work. I need to be able to grab my work truck’ or whatever it may be.”
Mother Nature isn’t helping. Crews spent Monday pumping water out of the crater to reach what’s left of the jet, fighting a deluge that Flores said had been pounding the area “nonstop for the last probably 48 hours.” The impact also ruptured a water main, which he suspects helped smother the burning fuel.
Green Acres pitches itself online as an affordable, tidy manufactured home community close to shops and schools. Flores said it’s a mix of owner-occupants and renters spread across roughly 75 homes. “It’s probably been there closer to 50 years,” he said. As for damage, management says it has none to report so far.
County Administrator Joe Abruzzo has asked Gov. Ron DeSantis for an emergency declaration that would unlock funding for displaced residents and nearby businesses, warning the area could stay closed for an extended stretch. Flores said the county is weighing hotel vouchers and temporary housing. DeSantis, who toured the scene Sunday, called the crash “cataclysmic.”
Federal investigators are probing whether the jet began breaking apart midair after its crew reported icing while flying into a fast-building thunderstorm. Anthony Blackmon, who lives roughly 500 feet from the crash site, said Miami that debris slammed into his home. One driver who had just cleared the area walked away with deployed airbags and minor treatment.
Flores, a military veteran, said the scene was familiar to him but not to his constituents. “I’ve been in the military. I’ve seen things like this happen before, but I know those community members probably have never gone through anything like this,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get our people back into their homes soon.”
The county continues to assess how long the mobile home park will remain closed as investigators work the debris field.