Emergency crews were responding to a small plane crash near the airport in Boca Raton, Fla., on Friday, officials said, which sent large plumes of smoke billowing into the air as residents reported hearing a thunderous crashing sound.
Footage from television news showed debris on a set of train tracks beneath a highway overpass. The Boca Raton police said a major section of Interstate 95 had been closed near the crash site. Flightradar24, a flight tracking site, captured a dizzying flight pattern as the plane looped and zigzagged around the Boca Raton area. It took off around 10:15 a.m. local time from Boca Raton airport and was headed to Tallahassee, Fla.
A business manager at the airport said the airport was closed because of an “aircraft incident.” The airport mainly operates private and charter flights.
The plane is a Cessna 310R, built in 1977, according to registry data from the Federal Aviation Administration. It was not immediately clear how many people were on board the plane, which can seat four to six people.
Lorenzo Echeverria, a pilot and flight instructor who lives about a mile from the airport, had just returned from a morning run when he heard what sounded like an “abnormally loud” propeller plane
At first he thought it might be a military aircraft or a bigger propeller plane, but when he checked a flight tracker app, he saw that the plane appeared to be flying in a random pattern that was “all over the place” at around 200 feet, “which is extremely abnormal,” Mr. Echeverria said. Planes are restricted to flying least 1,000 feet over congested areas, he said.
“Even someone with a special flight permit wouldn’t be able to do that type of thing,” he said. “Right then and there I knew something was wrong.”
Mr. Echeverria did not hear the crash because of his hurricane-proof windows, he said, but the next thing he knew, there was a large black plume of smoke.
This is a developing story.
