Gerrard Kaonga
The audio from the cockpit of a doomed private jet that crashed onto a Florida highway has been revealed, giving us an insight into the chilling final moments of those onboard.
On February 9 of this year, a private plane attempted to make an emergency landing on the I-75, a busy highway in Florida, but in doing so it crashed and struck vehicles, killing two people onboard.
The three others onboard the Bombardier Challenger 600, which was heading for Naples Municipal Airport, FL, thankfully survived.
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It was confirmed that a person who was driving in a car on the highway was also injured in the crash.
Police later confirmed in a social media post that the deaths were that of the two pilots - Edward Daniel Murphy, 50, of Oakland Park, Florida; and second in command Ian Frederick Hofmann, 65, of Pompano Beach, Florida.
They also identified the other occupants as Sydney Ann Bosmans, Aaron Baker and Audra Green, who were witnessed sprinting from the burning wreckage.
They were all transported to a local hospital for treatment for their injuries.
Seconds before the disaster, which saw the plane lose both engines, air traffic control was able to capture the panic and fear from the pilots as they described the dire situation.
“Okay, ah, Challenger, ah, Hop-A-Jet 823, lost both engines, emergency, I’m making an emergency landing,” one of the pilots can be heard saying.
Air traffic control told colleagues he had an emergency, and informed the pilot he was clear to land runway 23.
However, the pilot made it clear they didn’t believe they would make the runway and said: "Uh, we're cleared to land but we're not going to make the runway. We've lost both engines."
Richard Collins, a pilot who lives close to the interstate and heard the crash, spoke to local media about the incident.
“It was a loud thud, it was a unique thud, nothing like you had heard before. It wasn’t an explosion or anything like that" he said.
"The best way to describe it is a sudden impact in the earth and a thud."
Collins spoke about what he believes the pilots were thinking just before the crash as they would have realized their plane had no working engines and that they were too far away from their destination.
“You don’t think about yourself, you think about getting the plane to the ground safely but first and foremost what is the safest place for me and secondary to that is what is the safest place for me," he explained.
“They certainly did a right thing in my mind to save a whole lot of people and I think they deserve kudos for that.”