A private passenger jet with five people aboard crash-landed on a busy Florida highway and collided with a vehicle on the ground in a fiery accident on Friday that killed at least two people, according to authorities and news footage from the scene.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 business jet, which took off from Ohio, was on approach to Naples Airport when the pilot radioed that both the plane's turbofan engines had failed, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement.
Video and photos from the scene showed the aircraft engulfed in flames and smoke after it crash-landed on Interstate 75 near Naples, on southwestern Florida's Gulf Coast, and came to rest beside a roadside retaining wall. The Florida Highway Patrol said the plane also struck a vehicle on the highway.
At least two people were killed in the accident, but it was not immediately known whether they were in the plane or in the vehicle it hit, said Adam Fisher, a spokesperson for the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
The plane was carrying five people
The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration said the jet was carrying five people. Miami-based television station WPLG, an ABC affiliate, reported three people made it off the plane alive, citing airport officials.
Television station WPLG said the pilot was heard on an air traffic control audio recording telling the Naples control tower that the plane had lost its two engines and was unable to make it to the airport.
WPLG said the plane, operated by the Hop-a-Jet charter aviation carrier, was ultimately destined for an executive airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where that company is based. The flight originated at Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, the NTSB said.
Members of an NTSB crash investigation team arrived on the scene within a few hours, an agency spokesperson said.