Around 12:50 p.m. Sunday, a Learjet 60 slammed into South Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North. The spot is right at the entrance to a mobile home community, next to a strip mall parking lot.
The FAA says the plane took off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Nine people were aboard. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X shortly before 4 p.m. that none of them made it, and called it a "horrific tragedy."
People heard the blast from miles away. Video from the scene shows fire running along broken pavement, black smoke, and wreckage thrown across a wide area. Chunks of the aircraft, including parts of the fuselage and landing gear according to one account, ended up on sidewalks a few meters from houses. The impact left a crater in the road and shoulder.
Gov. Ron DeSantis went to the site Sunday evening. "Cataclysmic," he called it, and said the jet looked like a missile coming down
The crash site sits beside the only way in and out of the neighborhood, so about 600 residents couldn't stay put. County Commissioner Joel Flores, whose district covers the area, said the first job Sunday night was simply finding them beds.
Two shelters were on standby. The Red Cross was ready. Palm Tran buses were lined up to move people as soon as law enforcement gave the go-ahead. The county said the scene is being treated as a crime scene while the investigation begins, so nobody was walking back in.
No one on the ground has been reported dead or injured. Given where the jet came down, that's a short sentence with a lot behind it.
John I. Leonard High School, at 4701 10th Ave. N., is closed Monday. Every other district school opens on schedule, though the district warned that heavy rain could slow buses and back up car lines. Parents can track routes in the Here Comes the Bus app.
Tuesday, Nov. 3, is Election Day, and all district schools are shut.
Military Trail stays closed between Cresthaven and 10th Avenue North. Plan on detours.
The NTSB is running the show. It's sending a go-team and planned a media briefing in West Palm Beach on Monday. Nobody has released the victims' names or said how many were crew versus passengers.
Aviation sites, working from registry and tracking data, list the jet as a 2001 Learjet 60, tail number N722BD. CNN reported it was advertised online for charter. No operator has been officially named.
Weather is the obvious question, and the honest answer is that nobody knows yet. Thunderstorms were active across South Florida. Aviation expert DeWitt Ingram told CBS12 they could have played a role. Some unofficial breakdowns of flight data say the jet dropped from roughly 35,000 feet in about 75 seconds, and one widely shared radar analysis claims it flew through a storm core just before. None of that has been confirmed by investigators.
Audio purporting to be the crew's final radio calls is also spreading online. Outlets disagree on what's said, and the recording hasn't been authenticated. One version has the crew reporting moderate turbulence and ice, asking to climb, and getting cleared to flight level 370. Take it with caution.
CNN, citing NTSB records, reports this is the second deadliest U.S. crash of 2026. A June skydiving plane crash in Butler, Missouri, that killed 12 is the only one ahead of it.
NTSB teams usually spend several days at a site, documenting wreckage and gathering radar, weather and air traffic records. A preliminary report tends to come within a few weeks. The final probable cause can take a year or longer.
For the displaced residents, the open question is when they get home. County officials said updates will follow as the scene is released.
