By Emily Pesquera
A typical day driving in South Florida turned deadly in seconds. A Bombardier Challenger 604 jet crashed on Interstate 75 in Southwest Florida on Friday, Feb. 9th.
Drivers on I-75 witnessed a jet crashing into two cars heading south; two people on the plane were declared deceased. The two victims who died were pilot Edward Daniel Murphy and second-in-command Ian Fredrick Hofmann. The number of those injured has not been released at this time.
The crash happened near the southbound lanes of Pine Ridge Road; this crash caused a disaster for cleanup and traffic.
The Federal Aviation Administration said five passengers aboard the flight had taken off from an airport at Ohio State University. Tracking data from FlightAware shows the plane’s track from Ohio State to Naples Airport and its final destination, Fort Lauderdale.
Crashing onto I-75, drivers and home/business owners are crediting the noise barrier that was in between where the plane crashed and a residential area to prevent the fire from spreading.
Before the crash, the pilot dispatched an “emergency,” stating that he had lost both engines and needed to make an emergency landing; that emergency landing was roughly five miles from Naples airport.
In the last recording before the jet crashed, the pilot said, “Cleared to land, but we’re not going to make the runway.”
Unfortunately, that was the case, and the pilot did not make it to the runway.
The calls into 911 dispatches were calls of distress. A woman called 911 to inform them that her car had just been cut in half by the jet.
“Is it about the jet crash?” the dispatcher asks. “Yes, it hit our car, and the whole back of the car is gone,” the woman responds, adding that she’s not injured, according to NBC 6 South Florida.
A six-mile stretch of I-75 was shut down; at the time of the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration announced, “I-75 will be shut down for the next 24 hours while they conduct their investigations.”
Traffic backed up throughout I-75 in both directions; witnesses who saw the crash occur had limited time to get past the plane, with fears of the plane exploding and the flames expanding throughout the highway.
Brianna Walker from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was heading home with her friend’s mother, who was driving when they saw the crash.
“It looked like it was trying to hit the median,” Walker said in an interview with the New York Times. “It starts sliding across the highway, takes a car with it, the wing comes down, crushes another car and throws it into the median, and then it hits the concrete and immediately burst into flames.”
Dashcam footage caught the fiery crash, with some footage even capturing individuals trying to escape the flames.
The FAA declared that it could take up to 30 days for them to release all the information that happened on Feb. 9th. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are still investigating.