The pilot of a business jet carrying nine people from Texas to the Bahamas desperately declared a mayday on Sunday, telling air traffic controllers that the plane was dropping 20,000 feet per minute. Moments later, the jet nosedived into the ground, exploding into a fireball and killing all on board.
The plane, a Learjet 60, had departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas, the Federal Aviation Administration said. It crashed on a road adjacent to a neighborhood about four miles from Palm Beach.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a statement, confirmed that all those aboard had died.There was no information available about the identities of those on the plane.
Local officials said later at a news conference on Sunday afternoon that authorities were evacuating about 600 residents in a small community of trailer homes just outside the boundaries of the City of Greenacres in unincorporated Palm Beach County.
As rain pounded the crash site, people in the area were moved to shelters. Other residents who were not home at the time of the crash were not allowed to enter the community to retrieve pets.
Emergency responders said that the area was considered a crime scene and was dangerous for residents, who reported that debris from the plane’s rapid impact had rained down on homes. Small fires also burned throughout the community.
Officials said that it did not initially appear that any people on the ground were injured.
Photos and videos posted online showed a small plane plunging nose first into the ground and exploding. Footage showed the plane crashing near a busy thoroughfare close to traffic with a community only feet away. The impact left a fiery crater in the roadway.
“This was a cataclysmic plane crash,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said at the news conference. “It looked like a missile going down.”
Just before the plane crashed, a pilot radioed air traffic controllers that the plane was facing rain and “light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” according to archived communications between the pilot and air traffic controllers in Miami on Sunday afternoon.
The pilot asked if she could climb to 37,000 feet, but soon after, she desperately declared mayday, a life-threatening emergency, to air traffic controllers.
She screamed that the plane was “descending 20,000 feet per minute.”
“We’re going to crash into the ground,” she said.
For several minutes after that, air traffic controllers tried unsuccessfully to communicate with the plane.
It was not immediately clear what led up to the crash. The F.A.A. and National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday that they were investigating.
Aviation safety experts said that they were struck by how fast the plane had descended to the ground and noted that the ice mentioned by the pilot could have played a role in the crash.
The pilot was indicating the “plane was uncontrollable,” said Steven Arroyo, a retired United Airlines captain who listened to an audio recording of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the plane’s pilot.
Mary Schiavo, an aviation lawyer and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, said that if too much ice builds up on a plane’s wings, it can destroy airflow, which could be consistent with how the plane turned and fell.
“That is a plane not descending, but a plane falling,” said Ms. Schiavo, who reviewed videos posted on social media and flight data. She added, “Icing can be so severe it can overcome and stall the plane.”
Esteban Ruiz, a resident of the trailer home community near where the crash occurred, said he was relaxing, looking at his phone when he heard a loud noise and what he thought was rain pelting his roof. It was actually pieces of metal debris raining down from the plane’s impact. He said he rushed out and saw a scene of chaos.
“I thought maybe it was lightning,” he said in Spanish, describing the crater in the ground where the plane crashed.
Stephanie Platts, another resident of the community near the crash site, said that she was sitting on her patio with her family when she heard a loud noise that sounded like a car crash. Ms. Platts said she froze as her trailer home caught on fire, set ablaze by flying debris from the crash.
Neighbors tried to help her put out the flames. She said she saw human remains scattered around her. And in the aftermath, she lost her dog, Moose, who ran away when the plane crashed. She said she hoped he took shelter somewhere in the midst of the chaos.
“Everything was engulfed in flames,” she said, “and then after the flames, was like rain of metal.”
Johnny Diaz, Bernard Mokam, Adeel Hassan and Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting.
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