An aircraft heading to the Bahamas plunged from the sky and crashed in a South Florida neighborhood on Sunday. All nine people on board died, and a fire and crater appeared on the road by the mobile home park.
The Learjet 60 crashed on Sunday around 12:50 p.m. near South Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North in Greenacres, a Palm Beach County town west of West Palm Beach, the FAA and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office reported.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated on social media that everyone on board died. He described the crash as “a horrific tragedy” and called people to pray for the families of the victims. There were no injuries or deaths of people on the ground reported, WPTV reported.
The jet took off from Austin, Texas, in the morning and its destination was North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas, the FAA said. Flight-tracker data show it flew at 41,000 feet while crossing the Florida peninsula near Naples, then descended to 35,000 feet and headed toward West Palm Beach, Aviation News reported.
Around 12:48 p.m., the jet started turning east and ascended slightly before beginning its descending right turn. It descended at a high rate, more than 30,000 feet per minute, and crashed in about a minute, breaking apart and catching fire, according to the flight trackers’ data.
Flight-tracker data showed the jet descended at about 32,000 feet per minute, or about 360 mph, TMZ reported. Radar indicated the jet was at an altitude of 8,000 feet when it began spiraling and plunging almost nose-first into the ground, according to BocaNewsNow.
The airplane, registered as N722BD, is a Bombardier twin-engine business jet. Registration records show the jet is owned by LR60271 LLC, a company from Wilmington, Delaware, CBS12 reported.
Audio recordings captured the crew’s conversations in the jet’s final moments. Minutes before the crash, the pilot reported to Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center that there was ice formation on the jet but it could be controlled; the outside air temperature was minus 47 degrees Celsius (minus 53 Fahrenheit), and there was moderate turbulence that lifted the jet 700 feet, CNN reported, citing the audio from LiveATC.net.
Then, the crew reported precipitation and requested to climb, and the controller cleared the jet to 37,000 feet, according to the recordings. Minutes later, the crew declared an emergency.
Mayday, mayday. We’re coming down 10,000 feet per minute, a voice on the plane stated, according to BNO News. A controller responded calmly, saying someone was with the crew and asking them to keep talking.
The next call was more desperate. “We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000 feet per minute,” the pilot reported, per CNN. The overspeed warning sounds when a plane flies faster than it should.
A female pilot then told the controller, “We’re going to crash into the ground,” BocaNewsNow reported. The crew’s calls reported that the jet was at 22,000 feet in a 60-degree bank, followed by screams. Then, a crew member shouted that they were “out of time” before the transmission ended, TMZ reported.
The jet crashed on South Military Trail near the entrance of a mobile home park and strip mall parking lot, breaking apart upon crashing, BNO News said. Video showed the plane diving and exploding in a huge fire by the busy road, missing cars and homes nearby. The jet left a big burning crater in the road near a utility pole, with heavy black smoke over a neighborhood recently struck by storms.
Witnesses heard a loud boom for miles, and power outages were reported in the area, CBS12 said. Area hospitals were alerted about possible casualties around 1 p.m., BocaNewsNow reported.
Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the accident site on Sunday and said the jet seemed to fall “like a missile going down,” leaving a large crater along Military Trail, WPTV reported. The Palm Beach County Fire Rescue responded to an extended incident.
About 600 people in a neighboring community needed shelter because of the damage on the ground, Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores said, the first county official to visit the accident site, CNN reported. Shelters were opened for the displaced people, WPTV reported.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office closed Military Trail in both directions between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North and advised drivers to avoid the area. The accident site is four miles south of the West Palm Beach airport, which was named after President Donald Trump in 2022, CNN reported.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, while the FAA sent a team of experts to assist the NTSB. The NTSB will release all information about the investigation, The Palm Beach Post reported. The cause of the crash was unknown.
By Sunday evening, officials did not reveal the identities of the victims of the accident or how many of them were passengers and how many were crew members. The airline operating the flight was not yet identified.
Thunderstorms were in the area on Sunday, and it was unclear whether the weather conditions contributed to the crash, CNN reported. DeWitt Ingram, a captain certified to fly Learjets and running an aviation consulting firm, examined the flight path and video for CBS12 and concluded that the jet fell from about 35,000 feet to the ground in about a minute.
“What we saw today is a jet coming out of high altitude very quickly,” Ingram said. He said flying into the top of a thunderstorm exposes the aircraft to strong air currents that can damage it and lead to loss of control, but he stressed that investigators have not yet proven this.
Ingram added that impact at such high speed can break an aircraft into small parts, which may explain the lack of noticeable wreckage at the accident site. He suggested that heavy parts, like engine parts and the landing gear, may remain at the accident site.
VisaVerge’s analysis of flight-tracker data estimated that the jet reached about Mach 0.9 during the dive, higher than the Learjet 60’s maximum speed of Mach 0.81.
Usually, the NTSB releases a preliminary report 30 days after a crash and a probable-cause report 12 to 24 months after the crash. In April 2025, a Cessna 310 crashed along North Military Trail in Boca Raton shortly after takeoff, killing all three people on board, the Palm Beach Post reported.
