2 dead after private jet carrying 5 lands on Florida interstate and hits vehicle
Two people were killed after a private jet carrying five people landed on an interstate in southwest Florida and crashed into a vehicle on Friday afternoon, authorities said.
The incident occurred in the southbound lanes of Interstate 75, near mile marker 107, in Collier County, according to a Friday afternoon statement from the Florida Highway Patrol.
Footage from the scene showed what looked like wreckage with smoke billowing from it and dozens of emergency vehicles.
Two people were killed in the incident, according to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.
It was unknown if anyone else was seriously injured in the crash.
No one with the highway patrol could be immediately reached for comment.
The incident occurred about 3:15 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said the plane is a Bombardier Challenger 600 jet.
Robin King, a spokesperson with the Naples Airport Authority, said three people on board the private plane managed to escape the wreck.
The plane took off from the Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, Ohio, about 1 p.m. The jet was minutes from landing at Naples Airport when the pilots told air traffic control the aircraft’s two engines malfunctioned, King said.
“The air traffic controllers then lost contact with the aircraft,” King said.
Witness Steve Steelsmith, who took video of the aftermath of the incident, told WBBH he was headed southbound on the interstate when the low-flying plane caught his eye.
“As the plane was coming in, I seen he tried to bank it left, kind of at the last moment and then there was the impact. I didn’t really have a good visual of the impact but I saw the explosion and the smoke coming from the airplane itself,” Steelsmith told the news outlet.
He said that’s when he drove to the scene, and began taking video.
“As I was climbing out of my truck, there was an initial explosion, that, at that point, you knew that whoever was still on the plane, it was just a loss,” he said.
The plane hit a truck, and someone in the truck sustained a laceration on his head, Steelsmith said.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, authorities said.