NTSB officials warned Monday that unraveling the cause of the deadly Florida Learjet crash will take considerable time, as investigators confront a waterlogged crater and remains scattered across a debris field spanning roughly half a mile.
The $2 million Learjet 60 slammed into the edge of a six-lane road in Palm Beach County near a mobile home park, killing all nine people aboard. The impact was so violent that it left a deep crater, severed what appeared to be a water main beneath the surface, and sent huge chunks of asphalt flying.
Erick Horta, 36, a Home Depot worker from Miami, and his friend Andy Gonzalez, 37, a landscaper from West Palm Beach, were stopped at a red light on Military Trail when the plane came down. “At first I thought it was a meteor; we didn’t realize it was a plane,” Horta told The Post.
“We rushed up there to see if we could help and there was a huge crater in the ground. It was shocking. There was a strong smell of gasoline and the police came and cleared everyone away,” he continued.
Gonzalez described entering a woman’s home to assist with lights that had been knocked from her ceiling by the explosion’s force. “There were human remains on top of cars from the people who were killed,” he said.
Anthony Blackmon, 18, was inside his house less than 100 yards from the impact zone when the blast erupted. “We didn’t really see debris of a plane, but we did find body parts,” the high school student told The Post.
“We found a backbone, and there’s a picture of a hand going around. The plane seemed completely disintegrated; there were only small parts,” Blackmon said.
“There was some metal but no big parts.”
The copilot has been identified as Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a 20-year-old Palm Beach County native. Her terrified voice can be heard in the haunting final cockpit audio recorded before impact.
Early indications from NTSB investigators suggest the aircraft may have begun breaking apart during its descent. The plane’s extreme speed at impact left virtually no large debris pieces visible in aerial photographs of the scene.
In gruesome video from the aftermath, bloody body parts appear scattered over a vehicle while a woman is heard saying in Spanish, “There are bones on the roof.”
Many locals were evacuated from their homes near the crash site overnight as authorities worked to secure the area. The debris field measures approximately half a mile by four-tenths of a mile, NTSB officials confirmed at Monday afternoon’s press conference.
Authorities are currently waiting for the crater to drain of water before they can continue their on-site examination. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.