A second plane has crashed in the US this week, killing six, a fare system change for Auckland Transport, and a warning for those encountering marine mammals in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
Just after 6pm on Friday, a profoundly sick little girl was beginning her long-awaited journey home after undergoing life-saving treatment at Pennsylvania’s Shriner’s Children’s Hospital.
A medical jet carrying the child, her mother and four crew members, all of whom were Mexican nationals, took off from Philadelphia’s Northeast airport destined for Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri ahead of an onward flight to Tijuana, Mexico.
Within minutes of taking to the skies, air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft, a Learjet 55.
“Medevac med service, northeast tower. Medevac med service, northeast tower. Are you on frequency?” the control tower pleaded.
Moments later they conceded: “We have a lost aircraft.”
Cars were destroyed and structures damaged outside the Roosevelt Mall after an air ambulance carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia. Photo / Getty Images
Dazed locals described the scene as a warzone, with limbs strewn across the road. Rows of houses were set alight as debris rained down from the sky.
One Philadelphian told a local news crew he thought his home town had been bombed. Dashcam footage of the crash indeed resembles a blast akin to a missile attack.
A good Samaritan said he literally took the shirt off his back in order to stem the flow of blood from a child’s head.
A car on the road had been “burned to a crisp, with a baby seat in the back”, he added.
Firefighters tackling multiple blazes manoeuvered around the charred remains of another vehicle that had been waiting in rush-hour traffic on a lively Friday evening when the catastrophic crash occurred.
Medical equipment from the jet was scattered around Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard, the epicentre of the disaster.
Philadelphia City Council member Mike Driscoll said he feared there were several casualties, potentially including residents or others on the ground.
“It doesn’t look good. And it’s a sad situation here,” he told CNN.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro gathered with local officials near the crash zone as he lamented the “awful aviation disaster”.
“We know that there will be loss in this region,” he said.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, both already hard at work probing Wednesday’s plane and helicopter collision in Washington DC, announced they had launched an investigation.
Simultaneously, the Red Cross hastily arranged shelter for the residents displaced either by the devastating destruction of their homes or power outages caused by the crash.
Shriners Children’s is heartbroken to confirm that one of our pediatric patients and the child’s mother were aboard the...
The paediatric patient on board the doomed jet had been in recovery in the US for months after undergoing a major procedure in September, sponsored by a generous benefactor.
Her January 31 discharge was long-awaited, with nurses at Shriner’s Children’s Hospital throwing a party in her honour.
Shortly afterwards, they waved her off as she prepared to board a flight that would never bring her home.
