Company operating plane in Philly crash had previous fatal incident in Mexico: reports
The company operating the medical ambulance jet that crashed on Friday night in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while transporting a pediatric patient was operating another aircraft in a fatal crash that happened more than a year ago.
On Friday, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, the company operating the planes in both incidents, said a Learjet 55 crashed while departing from Northeast Philadelphia Airport around 6:30 p.m. The incident happened on a street near Roosevelt Mall.
Four crew members and two passengers – a pediatric patient and her mother – were on the plane in the Philadelphia crash that was headed to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, the company said. They were all Mexican nationals.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the number of crew members and passengers. The crew members included a pilot, a copilot, a physician and a paramedic.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance operated a Learjet 35A in November 2023 that was involved in a deadly crash in southern Mexico.
In that incident, the aircraft crashed on landing at Cuernavaca Airport in Morelos, Mexico, on Nov. 1, 2023, after departing from Toluca International Airport in the city of Toluca. There were five crewmembers with no passengers on board and no survivors, the AirMed&Rescue website reported at the time.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said no names in the Philadelphia crash on Friday will be released until family members have been notified.
“Our immediate concern is for the patient’s family, our personnel, their families and other victims that may have been hurt on the ground,” the company said in a statement.
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