Nine dead in small plane crash near Trump’s Florida home

Nine people were killed Sunday when the Learjet they were traveling in plummeted into a neighborhood in southern Florida, just miles from US president Donald Trump’s resort home of Mar-a-Lago, officials said.

Several unverified clips depicting the deadly crash and posted to social media show an aircraft nearly vertical slamming at high speed into the ground and triggering a large fireball, leaving a flaming crater near a busy roadside.

“Today’s plane crash in Palm Beach County, Florida is a horrific tragedy,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement, confirming that all nine people on board were killed.

Duffy said the plane, a Learjet 60, had departed from Austin, Texas and was headed for the Bahamas.

The crash occurred near Cresthaven, a neighborhood in Palm Beach County that is less 11km from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump himself had been at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday and had departed from the nearby and newly renamed President Donald J Trump International Airport shortly after he boarded Air Force One at 11.55 am, about an hour before the crash of the Learjet aircraft.

Storms had been reported in the area, and Trump carried an umbrella as he boarded Air Force One.

“The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate,” the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.