The young patient aboard the medevac jet that crashed in a Philadelphia neighborhood on Friday evening was returning home to Mexico after undergoing “life-saving treatment” in the U.S., an official said.
The girl was among six people—four passengers and two crew members—onboard the Learjet 55, which plunged from the sky shortly after 6 p.m., less than a minute after departing from Northeast Philadelphia Airport on its way to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri. According to Shai Gold, spokesperson for Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, the child was happily traveling back to Tijuana with her mother, along with a doctor, paramedic, pilot, and copilot, as reported by NBC 10 Philadelphia.
Tragic End
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“All I can say is the patient was sponsored by a third-partner charity to undergo life-saving treatment in the US,” Gold said, adding, “She did her course of care. She was going home.
“She fought quite a lot to survive, and unfortunately this tragedy on the way home.”
Shriners Children’s Philadelphia confirmed to NBC 10 that the girl had been one of their patients.
“Shriners Children’s is heartbroken to confirm that one of our pediatric patients and the child’s mother were aboard the Jet Rescue Air Ambulance that crashed in Philadelphia this evening,” the facility said in a statement.
“The patient had received care from Shriners Children’s Philadelphia and was being transported back to her home country in Mexico on a contracted air ambulance when the crash happened. Because of patient privacy concerns, we cannot say any more about the patient and her family at this time.”
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The crash of the Learjet 55 triggered a powerful explosion, with one witness telling WPVI that it felt “like an earthquake.”
“The sky lit up, and I pulled over and basically it was just real bad around it,” they said.
“It lit up the whole sky.”
Fire in the Sky
The aircraft went down in a residential area about three miles from the airport, igniting multiple homes and vehicles, according to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. Video footage captured thick plumes of smoke rising into the night sky, while debris was seen scattered across the parking lot of Roosevelt Mall.
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City Councilman Mike Driscoll posted on X that the crash resulted in mass casualties.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said that the agency will be working alongside the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate the tragic incident.
The Learjet 55 crash comes just days after a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair with an American Airlines flight over Washington, D.C., claiming the lives of all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
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That incident on Wednesday marked the deadliest aviation disaster on U.S. soil since November 12, 2001, when an American Airlines jet crashed into a New York City neighborhood, killing 260 passengers—just two months after the 9/11 attacks.
