‘Like a meteor hit the ground’: Palm Beach residents describe Learjet plane crash scene

Residents who live near the site where the Learjet plane crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday afternoon have described the horrifying scene.

The private business jet was travelling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas when it crashed into a busy road in a residential neighbourhood near Cresthaven at around 12.50pm local time, sadly killing all nine people on board. 

It dropped 27,000 feet in one minute before crashing on Military Trail, a six-lane road that has lots of businesses and restaurants along the side, CNN reports. 

Tragic air traffic control audio from the cockpit reveals the pilot reported ice accumulating on the outside of the aircraft minutes before the crash. You can hear her panicked voice as she makes the mayday call, and her final words were: “Look, we’re gonna crash. Look outside. Holy f*ck, we’re out of time.”

Local man Anthony Blackmon was just 500 feet from the het when it crashed and exploded into a fireball. He told NBC6: “Debris was everywhere. Debris hit my house. Everything was on fire. The road was on fire. I’ve always seen it on the news, never thought it would happen so close to somebody like how it happened today.”

Credit: Chris Beckett/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Another local resident, Roger Forcelle, said he felt his whole house shake as the aircraft went right over before crashing nearby. 

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“It shook the whole house. It went right over us and crashed probably less than half a mile from where I live,” he said. “Everybody came out of their houses because you could feel it shaking.”

Someone else said it “looked like a meteor hit the ground”. Photos from the scene show a giant crater in the road where the plane crashed. 

District 3 Commissioner Joel Flores revealed that 600 people have been affected by the crash, including hundreds displaced at a nearby mobile home park.

“Right now our priority is evacuating the adjacent community right behind. We have about 600 people that we have to make sure that they have food and shelter tonight,” he said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said there have been no injuries or deaths from people on the ground. He told reporters: “Obviously, this was a cataclysmic plane crash. It looked like a missile going down. It left a big crater on the side of the road.”

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Featured image credit: Chris Beckett/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock