Nine dead after private jet crashes near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago (VIDEOS)

At least nine people were killed after a small private jet plummeted into a Florida street just miles from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Sunday.

The aircraft crashed at about 12:50 PM near Military Trail in Palm Beach County’s Greenacres area, around an hour after Trump left Mar-a-Lago that morning. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said nine people were aboard the Learjet 60 plane, which was heading from Texas to the Bahamas.

All nine people aboard died, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed in a statement on X.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Monday that investigators had found preliminary evidence suggesting the aircraft may have begun breaking apart before hitting the ground. Officials stressed that the cause of the crash remains unknown and that the investigation is still in its early stages.

Dashcam footage showed the airplane plunging almost vertically down toward a busy street before exploding into an enormous fireball.

Videos of the aftermath showed a large crater in the pavement, a ruptured waterline, and burning wreckage scattered across a nearby trailer park.

Around 20 NTSB investigators have been deployed to the crash site, where debris is scattered across an area reportedly measuring roughly half a mile by four-tenths of a mile. Officials said recovering the main wreckage from a water-filled crater in the roadway would not be easy.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether a cockpit voice recorder was aboard the aircraft, as past maintenance records suggest. However, they noted that it would be difficult to find salvageable clues. “That’s going to be a real challenge, and I think you’ve seen the video,” NTSB Member Tom Chapman said in a press briefing on Monday.