PHILADELPHIA — Seven people, including a person in a car, were killed when an air ambulance carrying six crashed Friday night near a mall in northeast Philadelphia.
The six people on the plane were identified as Capt. Alan Alejandro Montoya Perales, co-pilot Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, Dr. Raul Meza Arredondo, paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, patient Valentina Guzman Murillo and her mother, Lizeth Murillo Ozuna.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said it was unlikely anyone on board survived.
Mayor Cherelle Parker said at a news briefing Monday that the number of injured victims on the ground, where several dwellings and vehicles were affected, climbed to 24.
Four of them remain hospitalized, two in critical condition, Parker said. No additional information about their injuries was shared.
“We have not, out of respect for their families and their loved ones, shared the names of any of those who have been impacted,” Parker said Sunday.
Gov. Josh Shapiro took a moment Monday to commend the community for coming together in the wake of the crash. He recounted a man in a green hoodie who ran toward the crash looking to help the injured.
“I am grateful to our first responders and law enforcement for doing their part to save lives,” Shapiro said. “I’m grateful to our neighbors here in Northeast Philly for doing their part to save lives, and I’m especially grateful to Mayor Parker for her extraordinary leadership here in the city of Philadelphia.”
The air ambulance was traveling from Northeast Philadelphia Airport to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri when it crashed near Roosevelt Mall around 6:30 p.m.
Learjet’s flight path
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference Saturday evening that the crash is being classified as an accident.
Ralph Hicks, senior air safety investigator for the NTSB and the investigator in charge of the investigation, said Saturday evening that the Learjet 55 departed from Florida around 12 p.m. and arrived at Northeast Philadelphia Airport around 2:15 p.m. It waited on the ground for a few hours before it departed at about 6:06 p.m., he said.
After takeoff, the jet climbed to about 1,500 feet, Hicks said. It made a slight right turn, a slight left turn and then a “steep descent” to where it eventually crashed.
Homendy said the track of the flight does not suggest anything right now and that the NTSB will continue to evaluate all available information.
She said the flight deck communicated nothing to the air traffic control tower before the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said on X that all the travelers were Mexican nationals. The Mexican Consulate said officials have contacted the families of all six people.
“The necessary consular assistance is being provided and working with the authorities to clarify what has happened,” the consulate said in a translated post on Facebook.
A spokesperson for the air ambulance company told NBC Philadelphia that the patient was from Mexico and had come to the United States for “life-saving treatment” and was returning home. The ultimate destination was Tijuana International Airport, where a ground ambulance was to have taken the child home, the spokesperson said.
Cockpit voice recorder found
Officials said that the area of impact “is roughly four to six blocks” and that debris was found in remote areas.
Homendy said the NTSB is focused on collecting perishable evidence, including debris from the scene and anything else it might need to investigate.
The board said in a statement Sunday said the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder was found 8 feet deep at the site of impact. It was characterized as a crucial piece of evidence for investigators that could help determine possible unknowns in the crash and aid in establishing a timeline.
“Likely it is damaged,” Homendy said Saturday, before the device was found. “It may be fragmented.”
The airplane’s enhanced ground proximity warning system, which could contain some flight data, has also been recovered, the NTSB said Sunday.
Both components will be sent to the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C., for evaluation. NTSB officials have said the agency’s ability to extract information from such devices, despite being damaged in crashes, is unparalleled.
NTSB investigators have also recovered both engines and will continue to work at the scene, where wreckage recovery was expected to continue Monday, the board said. Recovered wreckage will be examined at a secure location in Delaware, it said.
The NTSB is not aware of debris or anything else falling from the plane before it went down, Homendy said. She said it welcomes witness videos.
Odalis Acosta, 29, said she was helping a customer at Four Seasons Diner when “everything shook.”
People in the restaurant dropped to the ground as the glass around them shattered, she said. A heavy piece of metal hit a customer in the head.
“You heard the explosion. I look to the side, and I see through the window the big ball of explosion,” she told NBC News.
Video showed fire and heavy smoke billowing in the air.
The plane crashed just days after 67 people were killed when an American Airlines passenger plane collided midair with a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy noted that the voice recorder could provide information as to what happened in the moments before the crash.
“We hope to get their preliminary report within 30 days, and we have committed to be in as transparent as possible with information as it comes out,” Duffy said at a press conference on Monday.
Duffy commended the work of Philadelphia officials and first responders, in addition to the NTSB and FAA investigators. He vowed to keep working with city and state even after the “news cycle moves.”
“We will not forget,” Duffy said. We’re going to stand in partnership with your community and this wonderful team that you all have built, I’ve had a chance to meet, and they are just they are remarkable Americans, and it was a pleasure to meet them.