PALM SPRINGS, Fla.—A small plane plunged into a Florida mobile home park, churning up flames and a column of black smoke, and authorities said they rushed to check for an “unknown number of victims” in the chaotic aftermath.
The aircraft struck two homes at the Mar-Mak Colony Club in Palm Springs before 6 p.m. Tuesday, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Capt. Albert Borroto said in an email. He said 911 callers had reported a low-flying aircraft and crew arrived at the crash site to find thick smoke rising in the air.
Borroto said one mobile home had been completely engulfed in flames. While he said there was an “unknown number of victims,” he wouldn’t say how many people were injured or if anyone had died. Borroto didn’t immediately return calls early Wednesday for further information.
An AP reporter on the scene saw workers loading two stretchers into a white van. Each stretcher appeared to hold a covered body.
Domingo Galicia said he lived in one of the mobile homes hit by the plane and that his 21-year-old daughter, Vane, was inside at the time of the crash. He said he was blocked by flames when he went to open the door to the home.
“Where is my daughter?” he asked. “I don’t know where is my daughter right now.”
After speaking to a reporter, Galicia began to cry and family members huddled around him, praying in Spanish.
Clara Ingram, who lives in the trailer park, told The Associated Press that she was home at the time of the crash and heard it happen.
“It just pounded, like an explosion,” Ingram said, adding that when she went to look out her door, she saw “nothing but a big ball of fire.”
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Therese Barbera said there was no update Wednesday morning as officials waited for the National Transportation Safety Board to arrive at the scene.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen confirmed the crash in emails to The Associated Press but said she had no further details Wednesday other than that the NTSB was in charge of investigating. It was not clear when NTSB experts would arrive.
