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One person on the ground was killed and another 19 injured when a small medevac jet plummeted into a Philadelphia neighborhood Friday night, torching cars and wrecking homes as horrified residents watched the carnage, officials confirmed Saturday.

The fiery wreck killed all six people on board the Learjet 55 that took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport — including a young girl from Mexico who had received “life-saving treatment” from Shriners Children’s Hospital, her mother, paramedic, doctor, pilot and co-pilot.

The seventh victim was killed in a car on the street when the plane went down near Roosevelt Mall, Mayor Cherelle Parker said.

“This is not etched in stone. The investigation is ongoing,” she said.


  The victim killed on the ground was “in a car,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said. REUTERS The victim killed on the ground was “in a car,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said. REUTERS

Residents near Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard, where the plane crashed and exploded in Northeast Philadelphia, recalled bedlam as hunks of flaming metal cratered the street and pierced roofs.

Quincy Casby rushed outside to see his neighbor’s home on fire, while cars in the street burned and women screamed in utter terror.


  “This is not etched in stone, and the investigation is ongoing,” said Parker, adding local and federal emergency crews have been working around the clock. REUTERS “This is not etched in stone, and the investigation is ongoing,” said Parker, adding local and federal emergency crews have been working around the clock. REUTERS

“It looked like the Hulk had run through and had a whole fight,” Casby, 22, said.

“I saw one car had blood spattered all over it. There was a woman sitting there in shock with her eyes wide open saying, ‘My God, my God, my God.’ She said she’d seen a dead body.”

A Calvert Street home struck by the hail of debris, including landing gear from the plane, had a “gaping hole” torn through its second floor.

“I’m just glad that my family and I survived. I just want to be with my family now,” Kim Burden, who lives in the building, told The Post.

On Saturday afternoon, Calvert Street was a “crime scene,” according to Philadelphia Police officers, with officials from the FBI Emergency Response Team; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and  National Transportation Safety Board combing the area for evidence.

It is being treated as a crime scene due to the delicate nature of the area following Friday night’s crash, police said while urging locals to send in any video footage from the wreck.

The devastation, however, was felt as far as half a mile away from the macabre site, when a man inside a diner on Cottman Avenue was struck in the head by a piece of metal debris from the plane.

“We [were] all pretty shaken but everyone is OK,” Four Seasons Diner manager Ayhan Tiryaki told The Post.

Pennsylvania Gov. Joshua Shapiro bemoaned that local residents witnessed “carnage in their communities, saw fuselage, saw destruction and saw things that no one should ever have to experience in their neighborhoods” — before praising locals directly affected for helping out one another.


  Investigators work the scene after the deadly plane crash in Philadelphia, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. LP Media for the NY Post. Investigators work the scene after the deadly plane crash in Philadelphia, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. LP Media for the NY Post.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed all aboard the plane were Mexican nationals.

Carlos Obrador, the Mexican Consul in Philadelphia, told the Inquirer his emergency line has been ringing nonstop since the crash as worried loved ones reached out.

“Once people found out, folks who had family members traveling due to medical situations began looking for answers,” Obrador told the outlet.


  All six people aboard the small plane were killed.
 All six people aboard the small plane were killed.

Spanish media reported that Alan Montoya and co-pilot Jesús Juárez were at the controls of the doomed medevac jet while the Mexican emergency service XE Medica Ambulancias shared that its head of neonatology, Dr. Raul Meza, also was onboard the flight.

The doomed jet, owned by the Mexico-based Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, took off just after 6 p.m. Friday and was headed for a stopover at Missouri’s Springfield-Branson National Airport before continuing to its final destination, Tijuana, Mexico.

Yet less than a minute into the flight, the plane plunged from the sky.

No cause has been determined yet, but one aviation expert theorized a takeoff stall caused the crash.

“The plane was out of the crew’s control,” retired pilot John Anderson told Fox News Digital, adding that it “may have been a mechanical malfunction of the stabilizer, elevator, trim or even a load shift rearward within the cabin.”

Anderson further suggested that if “it was a medical flight with a stretcher on board and the stretcher was not properly secured, it may have rolled rearward.”

The Learjet 55 crash comes just days after an Army Black Hawk helicopter’s midair collision with an American Airlines flight over Washington, DC, killing all 67 people on board both aircraft.

It was the deadliest aviation crash on US soil since Nov. 12, 2001, when 260 passengers died after an American Airlines jet plummeted into a New York City neighborhood just two months after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Additional reporting by Marie Pohl and Dana Kennedy

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