9 Dead in Horrendous Private Plane Crash in Florida

Nine people were killed in the southeastern United States after a private plane crashed at high speed about 10 kilometers from U.S. President Donald Trump’s residence in Florida, authorities said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters near the crash site that the incident was “catastrophic,” adding that the plane appeared “like a falling rocket.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement that “the plane crash that occurred today in Palm Beach County, Florida, is a horrific tragedy,” confirming the deaths of all nine people on board.

The aircraft had departed from Austin, Texas, bound for the Bahamas, before crashing at 12:50 p.m. local time in Palm Beach County, approximately 10 kilometers in a straight line from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxurious residence.

The U.S. president had left the residence late in the morning. At the time of the crash, he was en route to Iowa and Kansas to attend two campaign rallies ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The plane was a Learjet 60, a business jet. It crashed in the Christenhaven neighborhood, near a mobile home complex. Local authorities evacuated about 600 residents and relocated them to shelters.

DeSantis clarified that the crash resulted in no casualties on the ground.

Thunderstorms had been recorded in the area. Trump had used an umbrella while boarding Air Force One about an hour earlier at Palm Beach Airport, which was recently renamed in his honor.

Audio recordings captured a woman in the cockpit reporting “moderate turbulence” to air traffic control and stating that the crew was “dealing with ice.”

Shortly afterward, the same speaker indicated that the plane had entered a “rain area” and needed to “climb,” before issuing a distress call: “Mayday, Mayday, descending at ten thousand feet per minute.”