US hit by second plane disaster in days after medical jet crashes in Philadelphia
At least seven people have died and another 19 injured after a medical jet crashed in Philadelphia on Friday evening.
About 30 seconds after taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, the medical transport plane crashed into several buildings, setting homes ablaze and unleashing a fireball into the night sky.
The plane had been on a medical transport mission, the Federal Aviation Administration said. All six passengers onboard – a child that had just undergone treatment for a life-threatening condition, her mother and four crew members – were killed.
Another individual who was in their car when the plane crashed has also died, Philadelphia’s Mayor confirmed. Officials have said that it would “likely be days” until the total number of casualties was known.
Mayor Cherelle Parker said that an investigation into the incident is ongoing. The plane was “only afloat for a very short period of time before something went terribly wrong and it crashed,” she said.
“Many people on the ground – in parking lots, on streets, in cars and homes in the area – were injured,” she added.


It comes just two days after the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter of a century, when 67 people died in a fatal collision between an airliner and a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan airport in Washington, DC.
On Wednesday night, an Americans Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in mid-air with an army helicopter carrying three soldiers, causing both craft to plummet into the Potomac River.
Officials said there were no survivors. A massive search-and-rescue operation is underway and 41 bodies have been recovered from the water so far.
Three black boxes – one from the blackhawk helicopter and two from the jet – have been recovered from the wreckage in the river and will be taken for analysis, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
Speculation about the cause of the collision has run rampant in the days since, but officials have not yet indicated..
All those onboard the medical jet involved in Friday night’s crash were Mexican, according to the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, said that she was mourning the six people who had died in the crash and offered her sympathy “to their loved ones and friends”.
“So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged. First Responders are already being given credit for doing a great job. More to follow. God Bless you all.”

The Learjet 55 was headed for Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri for a stop off before it was due to continue on to Mexico. Flight logs show it was only in the air for a minute before it crashed at about 18.10pm local time in a busy intersection near Roosevelt Mall.
Fire officials said multiple homes caught fire and witnesses described shrapnel damaging cars and shooting burning debris into the street.
Michael Schiavone, 37, told The i Paper he had been sitting at his home in Mayfair, a nearby neighborhood, on Friday when he heard a loud bang and his house shook. He said it felt like a mini earthquake and when he checked his home security camera footage, it looked like a missile was coming down. “There was a large explosion, so I thought we were under attack for a second,” he said.