Philadelphia plane crash: 7 dead, 19 injured after medical jet plummeted, exploded

• A medical jet crash in Philadelphia killed seven people.
• Nineteen others were wounded when the Learjet 55 crashed into a busy neighbourhood.
• The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash, as well as another in Washington that killed 67.

The death toll from the crash of a medical jet carrying a Mexican child home from a hospital in Philadelphia has risen to seven, officials said on Saturday, with 19 others wounded.

The crash – the second major aviation disaster in the United States this week – occurred on Friday when the twin-engine Learjet 55 plummeted towards a busy Philadelphia neighbourhood, exploding on impact and showering wreckage over homes and vehicles.

The aftermath of destruction is seen outside the Roosevelt Mall after an air ambulance carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo / via Getty Images

Officials had earlier said all six on board – a 6-year-old girl who had been in the United States for life-saving medical care, her mother, and members of the flight and medical crews with her – were killed. They were all Mexican nationals.

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On Saturday, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said at least one other person, who was in a car, had also been killed, and 19 people had been wounded.

Speaking at a press conference, Parker warned the toll was “not etched in stone” and could yet rise.

“We have a lot of unknowns about who was where on the streets of this neighbourhood last night at the time of impact,” said the city’s managing director Adam Thiel, warning it could be days before the full toll emerged.

He said the impact area covered four to six blocks, and there was also debris in a “remote area where something happened with the aircraft”.

HAPPENING NOW🚨: This morning, investigators including the FBI Evidence Response Team, ATF, NTSB, FAA, and the Philadelphia Police Crime Scene Unit, gathered at the site outside Roosevelt Mall to investigate and gather evidence following a small plane crash in Philadelphia,… pic.twitter.com/bKWx19QBzt

— Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) February 1, 2025

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum posted her condolences on social media platform X.

The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said it was launching an investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Both agencies are already probing the deadliest US air disaster in almost a quarter century, after a passenger jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary collided with a Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday.

The jet, with 64 people on board, was landing at Reagan National Airport in the Washington area – just miles from the White House – when it collided with a US Army helicopter on a training mission.

– Agence France-Presse