A young patient, a child from Mexico, was on board a medevac jet that crashed in a Philadelphia neighborhood on Friday evening. The child was being transported back to Tijuana after receiving “life-saving treatment” in the US. The patient, who was sponsored by a third-party charity, was traveling with her mother, a doctor, and four others when the Learjet 55 crashed shortly after taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport.
The child was a patient at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia and had undergone treatment at the hospital. The facility released a statement saying that the child and her mother were among the passengers of the crashed plane.
The crash caused a massive explosion and caused several homes and cars to catch fire. The aircraft, which was operated by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, was reported to have plummeted out of the sky just one minute after takeoff.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash, along with the National Transportation Safety Board. The incident is the latest in a series of high-profile aviation accidents, following a midair collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter earlier this week.