Parts of a business jet likely started to break off even before it slammed into the ground and erupted in a ball of flames in South Florida, killing all nine people on board, a federal investigator said Monday.

Video recorded by passersby captured the Bahamas-bound Learjet’s rapid nosedive Sunday afternoon before it exploded in Greenacres, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) southwest of West Palm Beach. Flames flickered around chunks of pavement lining the crater as shocked residents looked on in horror. Thick black smoke engulfed the crash site and little remained of the plane.

“Debris was everywhere. Debris hit my house. Everything was on fire. The road was on fire,” Anthony Blackmon, who lives near the crash site, told NBC affiliate WTVJ. “I’ve always seen it on the news, never thought it would happen so close to somebody like how it happened today.”

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[–] 2 points 2 hours ago

Feet per minute. 20k meters per minute would be 745 mph or 1200 km/h.

They were still falling at about 227 mph or 365 km/h. Worse than falling out of the sky, because the engines were on, they were full nose down, and had no control. It was a jet-powered rock.

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