An 11-year-old girl who was tragically killed in a plane crash in Philadelphia on Friday evening has been identified, along with her mother who also died in the incident.
On Friday, Philadelphia was rocked by news of a plane crash after an air ambulance plummeted into a busy neighborhood less than a minute after taking off.
The Learjet 55 had departed Northeast Philadelphia Airport at 6.06 PM local time, heading to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri.
The plane had been carrying a child who’d been treated at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia and was due to stop in Missouri before carrying on to Tijuana, where she and her family were from.
It then quickly vanished from radar after climbing to an altitude of 1,600 feet, and was reportedly only airborne for around 40 seconds before falling from the sky.
The six victims on board the plane have now been identified and named, while a seventh victim – who was in a car below – has yet to be publicly identified.
A spokesman for Jet Rescue Air Ambulance shared the identities of the victims to CBS as Captain Alan Alejandro Montoya Perales, co-pilot Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, Doctor Raul Meza Arredondo, Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, Valentina Guzman Murillo, and Lizeth Murillo Ozuna. All of them were Mexican nationals.
Valentina Guzman Murillo, 11, had been receiving life-saving medical treatment in the US and was heading home to Mexico with her mother, Lizeth Murillo Ozuna, 31, after finishing her treatment.
Hearts of Baja Children’s Network shared a photo of her and her mother, as they revealed that Valentina had been “receiving care for a pressure sore that she had from her Spina bífida condition.”
The post revealed that Valentina had “numerous health challenges and was very frail”, and the plan had been to “bring them home to live out the rest of her life surrounded with love and with her adoring family.”
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The post described Lizeth as “one of the most adoring attentive mothers a child could ever have”, who “never left [Valentina’s] side”.
Shriner’s hospital spokesperson Mel Bower added: “It’s extremely hard and extremely difficult, those that were involved directly in her care were very aware that she was going to be traveling home and there had actually been a sendoff for her today.”
Further devastating details were also shared about the crash, as it was revealed that the impact was so intense that the plane’s black box was founded 8 feet underground, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators, as cited by NBC10.
The plane’s enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) has also been recovered and both will be sent to Washington D.C. as part of the investigation into what may have caused the devastating crash.
The NTSB is leading the crash investigation with assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration and other local agencies.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker confirmed in a press conference on Sunday that 22 people were injured and five remain in hospital following the crash, which also significantly damaged at least 11 homes and several businesses.
Parker added of the victims: “Our city continues to mourn their loss and they are in our thoughts are prayers.”
The tragedy occurred just two days after a deadly mid-air collision between a Black Hawk military helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet in Washington DC.
The two aircraft collided near Reagan National Airport, with both landing in the Potomac River, and all 64 people on board the plane and three soldiers on the helicopter were killed in the incident.
