04-04-2025
Philly plane crash: Victims remains being returned to Mexico
The Brief
The remains of six people aboard a medical plane that crashed in Northeast Philadelphia are being returned to Mexico.
An 11-year-old pediatric patient and her mother were among those aboard the doomed plane.
A 37-year-old man who was sitting in a car at the time of the crash was also killed.
PHILADELPHIA - The remains of six people who were aboard a medical jet that crashed in Northeast Philadelphia shortly after take-off will be returned to Mexico.
Among the plane passengers was a pediatric patient who had just received crucial care at a Philadelphia hospital and her young mother.
The doomed plane was headed to Missouri on its way back home to Mexico when it fell from the sky less than a minute after leaving the ground.
What we know
A somber ceremony was held outside the Mexican Consulate in Center City on Thursday night to honor the six people who died in the plane crash.
The remains were placed in a vehicle and taken to Philadelphia International Airport where they were flown back to Mexico to be laid to rest.
Valentina Guzman Murillo, an 11-year-old who just received life treatment for Spina Bifida in Philadelphia, and her mother,Lizeth Murillo Osuna, died in the crash.
The four-person crew were identified as Capt. Alan Alejandro Montoya Perales, co-pilot Josue de Jesus Juarez, Dr. Raul Meza Arredondo, and paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla.
The backstory
Investigators say the plane was in the air for less than a minute when it fell from the sky and crashed near Cottman Avenue near Roosevelt Mall.
The crash was captured by several cameras around the populated Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood and showed a massive explosion and fireball.
Seven people, including all six aboard the plane and one person on the ground, were killed in the fiery crash that left a massive crater near a parking lot.
Investigators say the cockpit voice recorder that was recovered from the rubble did not capture the flight's final moments.
The flight was in communication with air traffic control, according to the NTSB, and there was no distress call received from the four-man flight crew.
The plane's Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, which investigators believe "may contain flight data in its nonvolatile memory," was shipped to the manufacturer to see if data can be recovered.
