Palm Beach Plane Crash: 9 Killed as Learjet Hits Road

A business jet bound for the Bahamas fell out of the sky over Palm Beach County on Sunday afternoon and slammed onto a road near homes, killing all nine people on board. "It looked like a missile going down," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, as quoted by CNN.

The Palm Beach plane crash happened at about 12:50 p.m. Eastern near Cresthaven, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the deaths on X, calling it "a horrific tragedy."

What we know about the Palm Beach plane crash

Officials have released only the basics so far, and the FAA has warned its information is preliminary.

• Aircraft: a Learjet 60, a twin-engine business jet.
• Route: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas.
• Time and place: about 12:50 p.m. near Cresthaven, in the Greenacres area, close to Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North, per NBC 6 South Florida.
• People aboard: nine. All were killed.
• Investigators: the National Transportation Safety Board leads, with the FAA sending a team to help.

The jet is registered to a limited liability company in Delaware and is advertised online as available for charter, CNN reported, citing FAA records. The names of the people on board hadn't been released by Sunday evening, and neither had the name of the operator flying the trip.

What the pilot told air traffic control

The most detailed picture so far comes from radio recordings. In audio captured by LiveATC.net and reported by CNN, the pilot told Miami's air route traffic control center minutes before the crash that the jet had "light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence," with an outside air temperature of minus 47 degrees Celsius. The pilot said the turbulence was bouncing the plane by up to 700 feet.

After reporting that precipitation had started and asking to climb, the crew declared an emergency, saying they were descending at 10,000 and then 20,000 feet per minute in an overspeed condition. Flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange showed the jet dropped 27,000 feet in about a minute before the data cut off, CNN said.

There were scattered storms in the area, and the plane passed through a stronger storm cell a few minutes before it began to descend. Whether the weather caused the crash is an open question. That's the NTSB's job to answer, and its investigations usually take a year or more to reach a final probable cause, with a preliminary report typically coming within weeks.

Damage on the ground

The jet hit near a busy road and appeared to narrowly miss homes, AP reported, leaving a crater in the pavement. Video from WPBF, cited by CNN, showed the roadway buckled where the plane struck.

DeSantis said there were no reports of anyone on the ground being killed but described a significant debris field. Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores, the first county official on scene, told CNN that about 600 people needed shelter because of damage around the site and were being sent to two county shelters while investigators work. NBC News said it was not immediately clear whether anyone on the ground was hurt.

Road closures near Greenacres

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue called the response an "extended incident." Military Trail is closed to all traffic between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North, according to WFLX, and the sheriff's office said northbound and southbound lanes would stay shut until further notice. If you live or drive in the area, expect detours until officials reopen the road, and check the sheriff's office and county fire rescue accounts before heading out.

About the Learjet 60

The Learjet 60 is a midsize business jet with two rear-mounted engines, a type that has flown since the 1990s and is widely used for private charter flights. Bombardier built the 60 and its updated 60XR version for years before ending Learjet production altogether in 2021. Plenty of older airframes are still flying, which is why investigators will look closely at this jet's age, maintenance and inspection history alongside the weather and crew actions.

Why the location drew national attention

The crash site is about four miles south of the airport in West Palm Beach, which was renamed for President Donald Trump earlier this year, CNN noted. Trump had been in West Palm Beach earlier Sunday but left on Air Force One a little more than an hour before the crash. Nothing reported so far links the two, and officials haven't suggested any connection.

According to CNN, NTSB records make this the second-deadliest U.S. crash of 2026, after June's skydiving plane crash in Butler, Missouri, which killed 12.

What happens next

NTSB investigators typically document the wreckage on scene, then move it for closer examination. They'll pull radar data, weather records, maintenance logs and the pilots' training histories, and they'll look for any cockpit voice or flight data recorders the jet carried. Expect a short preliminary report in the coming weeks that sets out facts without blaming anyone.

Families and the operator will likely be the first to speak about the people who died. Until then, early online claims about who was aboard deserve caution. The official sources to watch are the NTSB, the FAA and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Storms played a part in another emergency this fall; our report on the record San Juan River flooding covers that one. For Palm Beach County, the questions now are narrower and harder: what happened in that final minute, and why a jet whose crew called the ice manageable ended up in such a steep dive minutes later.