The pilot and co-pilot of the doomed medical transport flight that crashed into a northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, and a doctor on board, have been identified.
Pilot Alan Montoya and co-pilot Jesús Juárez were at the controls of the Learjet 55 as they flew a young girl, who had just received “life-saving care” from a Philadelphia hospital, and her mother home to Mexico, according to the outlet Milenio.
Juarez shared a now-haunting photo on social media just hours before the fatal crash.“Now if I went all the way home to the… Far away…,” he wrote in a Facebook post, featuring a framed image of an airplane and the call letters for Northeast Philadelphia Airport.
3 Six Mexican nationals, including a 6-year-old girl who had just received life-saving treatment, died in the crash.
3 Alan Montoya was flying home a young girl who had just received life-saving care at a Philadelphia hospital.
3 Pilot Alan Montoya and co-pilot Jesús Juárez (pictured) were at the controls of the jet.
Also on board was Dr. Raul Meza, according to the Mexican emergency service XE Medica Ambulancias.
“Dr. Raul Meza was part of [the] crew in the air ambulance XA-UCI belonging to another company where [he] also provides his professional services,” the group said, identifying him as its neonatology head.
Here is the latest on the Philadelphia medevac jet crash
Meza had studied medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and graduated as a pediatrician and neonatologist National Institute of Pediatrics, the Mexican emergency service said.
He also was assigned as a NICU physician at General Hospital of Atizapan, ISEM, in Ciudad López Mateos, XE Medica Ambulancias said.
The medevac jet, owned by the Mexico-based Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport at 6:06 pm for a stop at Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, according to data on FlightRadar24.
The plane, whic was scheduled to stop in Missouri before its final destination of Tijuana, smashed into the ground near Cottman Avenue and exploded into flames less than a minute after takeoff, sending fiery hunks of metal and debris scattering into the nearby residential area.
All six of the people on board the plane, which also included a paramedic, were killed in the crash. At least one person on the ground was also killed, officials confirmed Saturday.
At least 19 people on the ground were hurt.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the six people onboard the flight were Mexican citizens.
Neither city officials nor Jet Rescue have publicly confirmed any of the names of who were killed in the crash.
Pilots, doctor killed in Philadelphia medevac crash identified
