A small plane carrying three passengers crashed on Friday morning in Boca Raton, Florida, killing all three people on board and injuring another person on the ground. The Cessna 310 – a twin-propeller engine plane with four to six seats – took off from Boca Raton at 10:13 a.m., but began to experience “some mechanical issues” according to Boca Raton Assistant Fire Chief Michael Lasalle.
The plane went down on Military Trail at 10:20 a.m., near the I-95 highway and a railroad crossing, about a mile from the airport from which it took off. According to the FAA, the plane was bound for Tallahassee International Airport at the other end of the peninsular state, some 377 miles away.
The plane erupted into a fireball on the road where it landed, leaving a driver injured after swerving away from the flames and hitting a tree. The man was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The flight tacking social media account Flightradar24 reports that “the aircraft appears to have been trying to return to BCT (the airport the plane took off from) shortly after takeoff.” The post includes a visual representation of the plane’s flight path showing it circling the airport several times after taking off before crashing.
The names of the victims have not been released, and the cause of the crash remains unknown as of this writing. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating, working closely with local officials.
The crash follows another fatal accident in New York on Thursday, where a helicopter carrying a family of Spanish tourists on a sightseeing tour went down in the Hudson River, killing all six people on board, including three children.
