2 dead after plane crashes into car on Florida highway

At least two people were killed Friday afternoon when a small plane that had lost both its engines crashed into a vehicle on a Florida interstate as the pilot attempted to make an emergency landing, authorities said.

 

Five people were on board the private jet when it crashed near a highway exit in Florida's Collier County, creating a fiery debris field that caused officials to close Interstate 75, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

 

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and Collier County Sheriff's Office confirmed that two people died in the collision.

 

Naples-area resident Jinny Johnson came upon the crash just minutes after it happened, as she was heading north on I-75 around 3:20 p.m.

 

"All of a sudden I saw a lot of black smoke," Johnson said. "It was pitch black. As I got closer, the smoke got a little lighter. And then I saw flames."

 

Flames shot into the air, eating into the plane, and there was a damaged car sitting on the median, Johnson said. As she crept north, sticking to the lane on the far side of the road to give herself as much space from the plane as possible, she watched everything unfold. 

 

The plane was traveling from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, to the Naples, Florida airport and was scheduled for travel to Fort Luderdale, said Robin King, the director of communication with the Naples Airport Authority. She said the airport lost touch with the plane just before it crashed around 3:10 p.m. It left Ohio at 12:30 p.m.

 

"It was coming in for a landing," King said. "We received word that it had possibly lost an engine ... Then we lost contact."