South
Philadelphia plane tragedy: Medical ambulance transporting pediatric patient crashes, explodes near homes
A medical ambulance plane transporting a young girl who had just received life-saving treatment crashed on a street Friday night near the Roosevelt Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, the global ambulance flight company operating the plane, said its Learjet 55 crashed while departing from Northeast Philadelphia Airport at about 6:30 p.m.
The company said there were four crew members and two passengers on the plane at the time – a pilot, copilot, physician, paramedic, pediatric patient and her mother. They were all Mexican nationals.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the number of crew members and passengers.
KAZAKHSTAN PLANE CRASH SURVIVORS SAY THEY HEARD BANGS BEFORE AIRCRAFT WENT DOWN; PUTIN ISSUES STATEMENT
Air Ambulance spokesperson Shai Gold told Fox News Digital the patient was a Mexican national who was in the U.S. for life-saving medical treatment. At the end of treatment, she was released to go home.
The plane was scheduled to fly from Philadelphia to Tijuana International Airport, with one technical stop in Springfield, Missouri for fuel, according to Gold.
The FAA confirmed the plane was on its way to Missouri at the time of the crash.
The company could not confirm the identities or ages of anyone onboard until family is notified, but said it is unlikely there are survivors.
“The plane was loaded with jet fuel that’s highly flammable,” Gold said. “There is no indication that anybody survived, and by the debris field, I would be pleasantly surprised to learn otherwise.”
Air Ambulance is a Mexican-registered company that is licensed in Mexico and Florida, according to Gold. The aircraft was licensed, insured and accredited, he said.
“[There was] a very seasoned pilot [and a] very seasoned co-pilot,” Gold said. “They know the job, and they do it many times. We fly 600 to 700 missions a year. We are very busy, very active, and we keep top-notch staff.”
The same service helped transport Boston Red Sox star and MLB Hall of Famer David Ortiz in 2019 after he was shot at a bar in the Dominican Republic. Ortiz, who was severely wounded, survived emergency surgery.
The aircraft that went down was based out of the company’s headquarters in Mexico and Toluca International Airport, Gold confirmed.
Chilling audio from an air traffic control tower at Northeast Philadelphia Airport revealed the final moments before the crash.
The audio, obtained by Fox News Digital, reveals operators were desperately trying to make contact with the Learjet 55 before it crashed, but received no response.
“What’s going on down there?” one air traffic controller can be heard saying.
“We have a lost aircraft. We’re not exactly sure what happened. So, we’re trying to figure it out,” replies another air traffic controller. “The field is going to be closed so no inbounds-outbounds.”
Shriners Hospitals for Children confirmed in a statement to Fox News the girl received care at its Philadelphia location, which is 12 miles away from the airport.
“Because of patient privacy concerns, we cannot say any more about the patient and her family at this time,” the hospital wrote in the statement. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the medical crew and pilots who were also lost in this tragic event – as well as all of the people who were affected on the ground – and we’re thankful to the first responders for their quick action.”
Nearby Temple University Hospital Jeanes Campus confirmed six patients were taken to the hospital.
Of the six, three were treated and released, the other three remain in “fair condition,” according to a hospital spokesperson.
It is unclear if the patients were plane occupants, or people on the ground at the time of the crash.
A senior Philadelphia fire official tells Fox News the fires that were sparked by the crash are “now under control.”
STAFFING AT REAGAN WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT AIR CONTROL TOWER WAS ‘NOT NORMAL’ ON NIGHT OF COLLISION: FAA
Debris of the aircraft lies on the ground at the site of a plane crash in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., January 31, 2025. (REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski)
The official said when the plane went down, it sprayed jet fuel, soaking nearby row homes. The homes then went up in flames. The fire official tells Fox News six houses and six cars caught on fire.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to react to the tragedy.
“So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged,” Trump wrote. “First Responders are already being given credit for doing a great job. More to follow. God Bless you all.”
Vice President JD Vance later took to X, calling the situation “very sad.”
“May God bless the victims and their families,” Vance wrote.
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that he briefed Trump and other officials on the disaster.
“Just briefed the President and @GovernorShapiro from FAA HQ. I offered the full support of the @USDOT to the Governor and local officials,” Duffy wrote. “Investigators are on site.”
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker at a press conference Friday night said she was unable to confirm the number of fatalities and asked for prayers.
“We know there will be loss in this region,” Parker said.
Rescue crews respond to a plane crash in northeast Philadelphia. (X /@KeeleyFox29)
Earlier, she advised locals not to touch anything and call 911 if they come across debris.
A medical oxygen tank donning the name of the transport company was seen on the ground outside a McDonald’s near the scene of the crash. A police commander told FOX 29’s Steve Keeley that there were “pieces everywhere.”
Rescue crews respond to a plane crash in northeast Philadelphia. (X / @lika_4649)
The City of Philadelphia posted on X, calling the incident “major.”
“Major incident near Cottman and Bustleton Avenues in Northeast Philadelphia across from Roosevelt Mall,” according to the post. “Roads closed in area including parts of Roosevelt Boulevard. Avoid area.”
City officials confirmed 45 state troopers are on the ground assisting.
A video shows the plane loudly crashing in the distance, with a burst of light covering the area.
Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on X, noting he was in communication with the mayor, police and fire departments.
“We are offering all Commonwealth resources as they respond to the small private plane crash in Northeast Philly,” Shapiro wrote. “We’ll continue to provide updates as more information is available.”
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is leading the investigation and the FAA will assist.
An NTSB investigator arrived on scene Friday night and additional team members will arrive Saturday, the agency wrote in a post on X.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Philadelphia said it was also on site investigating.
Smoke rises as emergency personnel operate at the site of a plane crash in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., January 31, 2025. (Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters)
The Philadelphia Eagles, who will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9, posted to X late Friday extending their condolences.
“The Eagles organization was heartbroken to learn of the tragic loss of life earlier this evening as a result of the plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia,” the organization wrote in the post. “We extend our condolences to the victims and loved ones they leave behind. We are grateful to the first responders for their heroic actions at the scene.”
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The crash comes just days after an American Airlines passenger plane collided midair with an Army Black Hawk Helicopter near Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Fox News Digital’s Jackson Thompson and Bradford Betz contributed to this story.
Virginia
Man shot, killed by Virginia trooper ID’d after crash ends in deadly stabbing attack
FAIRFAX, Va. (7News) — Virginia State Police have identified the man who was shot and killed by a trooper after a crash ended in a stabbing attack on Interstate 495 Sunday afternoon.
Jared Llamado, 32, of McLean, died at the hospital on Sunday after he was shot.
RELATED | 2 dead, dog killed after stabbing spree, trooper shooting on I-495 in Fairfax County
Investigators said Llamado was confronted by the trooper who opened fire around 1:17 p.m. The trooper was responding to a report of a road rage incident and found Llamado with a knife, according to a news release.
Four stabbing victims, all women, were also found at the scene, along with a dog that was also stabbed.
Michelle Adams, 39, died from her injuries. The dog also did not survive. The three other women were all taken to the hospital with serious injuries, according to VSP. 7News is not identifying the surviving victims.
Investigators said the stabbings stemmed from a crash in the southbound lanes of I-495.
The trooper who opened fire was not hurt and is on leave pending the outcome of the investigation into the use of force.
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Investigators said they do not believe the attack is connected to terrorism.
West Virginia
West Virginia Scoots Up in Top 25 Rankings After Taking Series From Kennesaw State
Another successful weekend for the West Virginia Mountaineers results in another slight bump up in the top 25 rankings. WVU took two of three from Kennesaw State on the road, allowing them to slide up to No. 23 in D1Baseball’s new batch of rankings.
D1Baseball’s Top 25 for Week 3
1. UCLA
2. LSU
3. Texas
4. Mississippi State
5. Georgia Tech
6. Arkansas
7. Auburn
8. North Carolina
9. Florida
10. Southern Miss
11. Georgia
12. Oklahoma
13. NC State
14. Clemson
15. Wake Forest
16. Coastal Carolina
17. TCU
18. Oregon State
19. Tennessee
20. Florida State
21. Kentucky
22. Texas A&M
23. West Virginia
24. Miami
25. UTSA
Missed opportunity
West Virginia had a 6-0 lead in game three of its series against Kennesaw State, looking well on their way to a clean three-game sweep of the Owls.
Unfortunately for Steve Sabins, the bullpen imploded following another strong five-inning outing from the big lefty Maxx Yehl. Bryson Thacker, Carson Estridge, and David Perez combined to give up four runs on five hits over the final three innings, allowing the Owls to steal Sunday’s game.
The loss frustrated West Virginia fans and rightfully so, but there’s no need to panic. The name of the game is to continue winning the series. You do that, you’ll find yourself in a position to make the NCAA Tournament and earn a high seed. Obviously, you don’t want to blow the opportunity of a sweep, especially when you’re up 6-0, but it’s not a loss that is going to ruin their resume. Losing the series, on the other hand, would have.
What’s next for the Mountaineers?
No single mid-week game this week for West Virginia. Instead, they’ll play a quick two-game series against Radford at home beginning Tuesday. They’ll get one day of rest before opening up a three-game series at home against Columbia, which will be the final series of non-conference play. WVU will have a single mid-week game against Maryland on Tuesday, March 10th, before beginning Big 12 action on the road against Baylor.
The full remaining schedule
Mar. 2-4 Radford
Mar. 6-8 Columbia
Mar 10 Maryland
Mar 13-15 at Baylor
Mar. 17 Penn State
Mar. 29-21 BYU
Mar. 24 at Marshall
Mar. 27-29 at Arizona State
Mar. 31 at Arizona
Apr. 3-5 UCF
Apr. 7 Marshall
Apr. 10-12 at Texas Tech
Apr. 15 at Penn State
Apr. 17-19 Houston
Apr. 21 Pitt
Apr. 24-26 at Cincinnati
Apr. 29 at Penn State
May 1-3 Kansas State
May 5 Marshall (Charleston, WV)
May 8-10 at Kansas
May 14-16 TCU
May 20-23 Big 12 Championship (Surprise, AZ)
Dallas, TX
Wilonsky: A mom deported, 4 kids left behind and an 80-year-old Dallas Girl Scout troop leader’s good deeds
Early the morning of Feb. 9, Ana, a 45-year-old mother of four, woke up in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center outside Abilene. Bluebonnet, it’s called, so named for the toxic state flower. She was hustled from bunk to bus for a ride to Del Rio. By noon, she was standing in the middle of the International Bridge that connects Del Rio with Ciudad Acuña across the Mexican border.
Ana was told only: You’re free to go – back to Monterrey, which she left in 2006 and where her parents still lived. She did not know how she was going to get there. Or when she would see her girls again.
Only five weeks earlier, Ana had a job at an ice cream shop at Lombardy Lane and Brockbank Drive in northwest Dallas, where she’d worked for six years. A single mother, she alone cared for her daughters, two of whom are in elementary school – fifth and sixth grades – and struggle with dyslexia. Her 12-year-old, diagnosed with severe depression, had twice tried to harm herself just last year. Her eldest, a 17-year-old senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, is set to begin college in the fall.
Ana crossed the Rio Grande on an inflatable raft near Laredo 20 years ago for a life she couldn’t find in Mexico. She met a man in Lewisville with whom she had four children. He abused her, she said, so she left again, to start over in northwest Dallas.
Immigration officials gave her a preliminary court hearing: Aug. 24, 2027. Ana, who has no criminal record, went to the ICE offices on Stemmons Freeway around New Year’s Eve for her annual check-in.

A plethora of messages were created on handmade signs for attendees to hold during an ICE vigil held outside the Dallas ICE field office, located at 8101 N. Stemmons Freeway in Dallas, on July 27, 2025.
Steve Hamm / Special Contributor
And every time she returned home to her girls. Until Dec. 30, 2025, when she was detained by officers, then shuffled around the state – Dallas to Alvarado to Abilene – before being sent back to Mexico, leaving behind daughters, all born in Dallas, to whom she did not get to say goodbye.
“I was so scared,” said Ana, who, with her eldest, agreed to talk to me if I did not use her full name or her children’s names.
“And I was in shock,” she said. “The whole morning I was just praying thinking about what to do next. I thought I would see my lawyer or talk to someone about what was going on, but the way they took us, no one explained anything to us. I know I did something wrong when I came over without my paperwork, as I should have. But I wasn’t stealing or hurting someone; I was working for my family, providing.”
Ana spoke by phone from Monterrey, where, last week, she buried her father, whose heart failed him days after she was left on that bridge. She began to cry.
“The fact that they just took apart my family, it’s breaking my heart,” Ana said, trying to catch her breath. “There are a lot of people who are doing bad things. We’re just trying to provide for our kids. Why us?”
But she knows why. Everyone does. Because there have been so many stories like this in recent months it’s impossible to keep track.
Ana was transferred to and deported from the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson on Feb. 9. 2026.
Eli Hartman / AP
Just last week, María de Jesus Estrada Juarez of California, who came to the U.S. when she was 15 and was a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, was arrested during her regular check-in and sent back to Mexico. In Alaska, a mother and her three children were sent to Tijuana within 36 hours of being detained by ICE. NBC News also recounted the story of an 11-year-old girl, a U.S. citizen, whose brain-tumor treatment was interrupted when her parents were deported to Mexico.
The Texas Civil Rights Project has been trying to reunite the parents with their 11-year-old girl so she can get the care she needs. I asked the Austin-based organization if they kept track of the number of parents without criminal records deported to Mexico while their children are left behind. A spokesperson said they do not maintain a database tracking such cases, but that “it happens very often under this administration.”
Which is more or less what other immigration advocacy and legal nonprofits told me: We don’t track that data. But it’s, you know, a lot. ICE didn’t respond to emails asking for that information, either.
But just because we’re inundated with these stories doesn’t mean we should turn a deaf ear to them, especially when they involve our neighbors. This feels especially personal, as Ana’s eldest will graduate from my alma mater – if she can survive the next few months of waking her sisters each morning, getting them to school, working late hours at her fast-food job, dealing with grown-up responsibilities suddenly thrust upon her and trying, somehow, to fit in homework.
“It wasn’t really a choice for me,” the 17-year-old told me. “If I don’t do it, who will? The hardest part is getting up every morning, because there’s no break for the rest of the day – it’s the same thing every day, the same loop. And if there is, I have to do laundry or get these girls to their Girl Scouts things.”
Lynn Wilbur has been a Girl Scouts troop leader since 1983. For the last decade, she’s been part of an outreach group within the Scouts that helps girls who otherwise couldn’t afford to be part of the organization.
Courtesy Lynn Wilbur
I never would have known of Ana’s story, and that of the children left behind, had I not been forwarded a newsletter from Now>Forward, the nonprofit once known as North Dallas Shared Ministries. In the newsletter was a brief telling of the tale, along with a plea for assistance, as the girls need food, rent, uniforms.
I was told to call Lynn Wilbur, a Girl Scout troop leader since 1983, when her own daughter turned 5, and, for the last decade, leader of an outreach program that provides financial assistance for girls who want to be Girl Scouts but can’t afford dues, uniforms, supplies, field trips. “Anything that has to be paid for,” Wilbur said.
There are some 60 girls in the program, most spread across Dallas ISD elementary schools, including Ana’s three youngest daughters. Where once the program was funded by a foundation, though, the troop is having to depend on private donations – begging and scrounging, Wilbur said.
“Now, we’re just trying to help the girls pick up the pieces, along with their lives,” the 80-year-old said. When I called, she was with Ana’s daughters.
Most of the girls in Wilbur’s troop are from Spanish-speaking homes. This is the first time one of their parents has been deported. But, she fears, it will not be the last. One mother recently asked Wilbur if she would take her daughter if she, too, is deported.
“The amount of fear is unbelievable,” Wilbur said. “My house is one place they let them come because they know they’d have to kill me before I let them in the door. This has got to stop. Unless good people step up and let their voices be heard nothing is going to change. That’s why I am talking to you. We can’t let this keep happening, especially to children.”
Wilbur taught Ana’s eldest how to pay bills, how to buy a car when her mother’s recently broke down, how to deal with insurance, how to be a grown-up at 17. The TJ student was never a Girl Scout. But Wilbur, the living embodiment of a slogan that demands a Girl Scout do a good deed daily, has surely taught her how to be prepared.
“Miss Lynn has always made us feel like we’re important, that we’re loved,” Ana said. Another small sob. “That we’re human.”
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