A small plane carrying five people crashed on Interstate 75 near Naples, Fla., on Friday afternoon, exploding in flames and killing two people, according to officials. They said that three of those onboard were able to get out of the plane.
The plane, a Bombardier Challenger 600 series jet, crashed on the highway around 3:15 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. It was not immediately clear whether anyone on the ground was injured.
Preliminary information showed that the plane’s pilot had radioed that the aircraft had had a dual engine failure as it approached Naples Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Friday. The agency said it would not comment on the cause of the crash during the early stages of its investigation.
Photos and video footage from the scene showed the aircraft’s fuselage in flames and a large plume of smoke billowing above the crash site.
The aircraft departed from the Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, Ohio, said Robin King, the director of communications for Naples Airport.
“They were scheduled to land about 3:15 here in Naples, and about two or three minutes before that, our tower received word from the pilots that they have, quote, lost both engines,” Ms. King said. “We don’t know exactly what that means. We lost contact.”
The plane crashed two to three miles from the airport, Ms. King said. Three of the five people on the airplane were able to get out of the airplane, she added.
An Ohio State University spokesman said that the plane was not affiliated with the university.
Brianna Walker, 26, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said in an interview on Friday that she was headed home from Fort Myers with her friend’s mother, who was driving southbound on Interstate 75, when they saw the plane crash.
“It looked like it was trying to hit the median,” Ms. Walker said. “It starts sliding across the highway, takes a car with it, the wing comes down, crushes another car and throws it into the median, and then it hits the concrete and immediately burst into flames.”
Ms. Walker took two videos of the crash, which she shared on social media. In one, the plane bursts into flames, and it appears as if someone was trying to flee the crash. In the immediate, chaotic, aftermath of the crash, Ms. Walker said, she struggled to tell whether people were able to get out of the plane.
Ms. Walker said that she and her friend’s mother feared that the plane would explode, so her friend’s mother drove onto the median to move around the plane.
“I said, ‘You have to drive now. It’s now or never,’” Ms. Walker said. “We just booked it.”
A six-mile stretch of the Interstate 75 will be closed for at least 24 hours, according to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, and local officials encouraged people to avoid the area while the F.A.A. and the National Transportation Safety Board investigated. Florida Highway Patrol troopers were also at the scene.
More than two hours after the crash, highway cameras showed dozens of vehicles stuck in traffic, unable to get around several law enforcement vehicles at the scene.
The N.T.S.B. said that “several more” investigators were expected to arrive on Saturday to examine the crash. In its investigation, the agency said it would examine flight track data, aircraft maintenance records and weather reports.
The agency also said that it planned to look into the pilot’s license and flight experience, and anything the pilot did in the 72 hours before the crash that could have affected the pilot’s ability to fly a plane. The agency asked that anyone who witnessed the crash or took video to contact the agency.
The aircraft, which officials said had the registration number N823KD, was scheduled to travel to Fort Lauderdale from Naples on Friday afternoon, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.
A Challenger 604 with the registration number N823KD is listed as part of a fleet maintained by Hop-A-Jet Worldwide Jet Charter, a private jet travel company based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The jet can carry up to 12 passengers, according to the company, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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