NAPLES (Florida, US), Feb 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A small plane carrying five people crashed on Interstate 75 near Naples, Florida., on Friday afternoon, exploding in flames and killing two people, according to officials.
They said that three of those onboard were able to get out of the plane.
The plane, a Bombardier Challenger 600 series jet, crashed on the highway around 3:15 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether anyone on the ground was injured.
Preliminary information showed that the plane’s pilot had radioed that the aircraft had had a dual engine failure as it approached Naples Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Friday. The agency said it would not comment on the cause of the crash during the early stages of its investigation.
The aircraft departed from the Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, Ohio, said Robin King, the director of communications for Naples Airport.
“They were scheduled to land about 3:15 here in Naples, and about two or three minutes before that, our tower received word from the pilots that they have, quote, lost both engines,” she said. “We don’t know exactly what that means. We lost contact.”
The plane crashed two to three miles from the airport, King said. Three of the five people on the airplane were able to get out of the airplane, she added.
An Ohio State University spokesman said that the plane was not affiliated with the university.
Brianna Walker, 26, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said in an interview on Friday that she was headed home from Fort Myers with her friend’s mother, who was driving southbound on Interstate 75, when they saw the plane crash.
“It looked like it was trying to hit the median,” Walker said. “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.”
A six-mile stretch of the Interstate 75 was closed for at least 24 hours, according to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, and local officials encouraged people to avoid the area while the F.A.A. and the National Transportation Safety Board investigated. Florida Highway Patrol troopers were also at the scene. — NNN-AGENCIES
