King Air with Jamaica Relief Goods Crashes in Florida

NTSB officials are investigating the crash of a Beechcraft King Air B100 that crashed yesterday morning while on climbout from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE) in Florida. According to reports, the turboprop twin was headed to Jamaica’s Sangster International Airport (MKJS) in storm-ravaged Montego Bay with a load of emergency relief supplies when it went down in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, killing the two occupants.

The nearly 50-year-old aircraft, registered as N30HG to Nevada-based International Air Services, took off from KFXE at 10:14 a.m. and, according to reports, crashed within minutes in a residential area. It narrowly missed hitting homes and came to rest with its wreckage fully submerged in a man-made pond.

Tracking data from FlightAware shows the aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 4,167 feet before it began a rapid descent.

On October 28, Hurricane Melissa churned ashore in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, the most powerful on record to strike the island. It caused catastrophic damage to areas of the island and killed at least 32 people. Included in the estimated $6 billion of destruction was MKJS, which had its terminal destroyed.