In this image provided by the Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Highway Patrol troopers are on the scene of a crash on the southbound Interstate 75 in Naples, Florida, on Friday, February 9, 2024. A small jet crash-landed on the busy Florida interstate highway and then burst into flames after colliding with a vehicle, according to authorities and news footage from the scene. INQUIRER FILES(Florida DOT/The News-Press via AP)
A private passenger jet with five people aboard crash-landed on a busy Florida highway and collided with two vehicles on the ground in a fiery accident on Friday that killed two people, according to authorities and news footage from the scene.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 business jet, which took off from Ohio, was on approach to Naples Airport when the pilot radioed that both the plane’s turbofan engines had failed, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement.
Video and photos from the scene showed the aircraft engulfed in flames and smoke after it crash-landed on Interstate 75 near Naples, on southwestern Gulf Coast of Floridda, and came to rest beside a roadside retaining wall.
The Florida Highway Patrol said the plane also struck a car and a pickup truck on the highway.
The jet was carrying five people, according to both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson Molly Best said three people from the plane survived and that two other people were killed. But she declined to specify whether the two fatalities were from the plane or the vehicles involved, saying next of kin were still being notified.
The number of people who were riding in the impacted car and truck was not given.
Miami-based television station WPLG said the pilot was heard on an air traffic control audio recording telling the Naples control tower that the plane had lost its two engines and was unable to make it to the airport.
WPLG said the plane, operated by the Hop-a-Jet charter aviation carrier, was ultimately destined for an executive airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where that company is based. The flight originated at Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, the NTSB said.
Members of an NTSB crash investigation team arrived on the scene within a few hours, an agency spokesperson said.
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