A small turboprop plane on a hurricane relief mission to Jamaica crashed on Monday morning into a pond in a gated residential neighbourhood of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, killing two people shortly after takeoff and narrowly missing homes, authorities and a local resident said.
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The Coral Springs Police Department confirmed the deaths in a statement on Monday afternoon. Police did not provide further details about the occupants of the plane and did not immediately return messages seeking more details.
Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department Deputy Chief Mike Moser said emergency crews responded within minutes of a call reporting the crash.
Initially, no victims were located during rescue efforts and they shifted to a recovery operation.
Moser said no homes were damaged but crews spotted some debris near the retention pond. Local aerial televised footage showed a broken fence in the garden of one home bordering the pond where the plane went down.
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“There was no actual plane to be seen,” Moser said. “They followed the debris trail to the water. We had divers that entered the water and tried to search for any victims and didn’t find any.”