Two people were killed on Friday February 9 in the crash of a private jet on a highway in South Florida, in the United States, local authorities said.
The accident occurred around 3:15 p.m. local time (9:15 p.m. GMT) not far from a small town called Naples, in the Gulf of Mexico, the American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency said on X (formerly Twitter).
Two minutes before the planned landing, the pilot contacted the air traffic control station by radio to say
“that he had lost both engines and that he was requesting an emergency landing
,” the carrier told AFP. airport spokesperson Robin King, in a press release.
“The air traffic controller immediately authorized the plane to land when the pilot declared that he would not reach the runway (...) (and) attempted to land on I-75
,” a huge highway that connects the Great Lakes region in the northern United States to Florida in the south.
Five people were present in the vehicle and three of them survived, according to the spokesperson.
The other two died in the collision.
It was not clear whether traffic on the highway was stopped at the time of the crash, or whether any vehicles were damaged in the crash.
The American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the circumstances of the tragedy.