A small plane has crashed into several buildings in north-east Philadelphia, setting homes and vehicles ablaze, and reportedly injuring people on the ground.
Six people were aboard the plane when it crashed Friday evening, officials said. The jet was on a medical transport mission and carrying doctors and a child patient, according to multiple US media, including the BBC’s news partner CBS.
Emergency crews rushed to the scene during evening rush hour and are appealing for the public to stay away from the crash site, which has thrown debris for blocks.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said at a news conference that city officials do not know the number of fatalities, but the city is “asking for prayers for anyone and everyone that may have been affected”.
Don’t touch anything
“If you see debris, call 911, don’t touch anything,” she told city residents.
The crash happened just blocks from the Roosevelt Mall, a three-story shopping centre in a densely populated part of the Pennsylvania city.
The area where the crash occurred is filled with terraced housing and shops.
Disturbing videos of the incident online show the plane coming down quickly and sparking a huge fireball that rocketed into the sky.
Witnesses describe shrapnel from the crash damaging cars, and strewing burning debris into the streets.
The plane, a Learjet 55, took off from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport at about 18:30 local time and crashed less than four miles (6.4km) away, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
En route to Springfield
The FAA said in a statement that the flight was en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri. At first, the agency said two people were on the plane but later revised that to six.
According to data on FlightAware, a flight tracking website, the plane was operated by a company called Med Jets and had arrived in Philadelphia from Florida less than four hours earlier.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating.
In a statement, President Donald Trump said his administration was “totally engaged”.
“So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost,” he said.
Weather forecasts in the area show it’s been a cloudy and rainy evening with winds measured around 10 to 20 mph.
One witness told local media that the explosion “lit up the whole sky”.
“I just saw a plane basically hit the building and it exploded. The sky lit up and I pulled over and basically, it was just real bad around here,” the witness told WPVI-TV, describing the crash as feeling like an earthquake.
Ryan Tian, 23, told The Philadelphia Inquirer said he was getting dinner when he saw a “massive fireball” that turned the sky orange.
“I thought we were getting attacked by something,” he said. As he saw people start to flee, he decided to get “outta there”.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro wrote on X that he’s in touch with local authorities and is “offering all Commonwealth resources as they respond to the small private plane crash”.
The plane crash comes just two days after a much larger collision happened between a commercial jet and a military helicopter in Washington DC, where officials suspect all 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed.
It was the deadliest plane crash in the US in over 20 years.
