A private jet owned by Warren Buffett's NetJets crashed onto a Texas highway Tuesday night, caught fire, and split nearly in half, and the people who saved most of the passengers were random drivers who grabbed a sledgehammer and started swinging. One person died. Five survived. The video is something else.
What Actually Happened on Loop 20
The aircraft, a Cessna Citation business jet, was flying from Los Cabos, Mexico to Austin, Texas when it radioed Laredo International Airport shortly before 10 p.m. local time reporting mechanical issues and low fuel. According to Laredo airport director Gilberto Sanchez, the plane lost communication with the tower within minutes and crash-landed on Loop 20, a major highway a few miles from the airport, around 10 p.m.
Dashcam footage posted to social media shows the jet careening down the highway, taking out a light post before slamming into a highway barrier. CBS News reports the plane came to rest tipped on its side, its tail sheared clean off and lying on a lower-level road beneath the main crash site. Flames and thick smoke surrounded the fuselage almost immediately.
Strangers With Power Tools vs. a Burning Airplane
Here is where the story gets genuinely remarkable. Drivers who came upon the wreck did not do what most of us would do, which is pull out a phone, dial 911, and stay behind a very safe distance. They got out of their cars and ran toward the burning jet. Two of them showed up with a sledgehammer and a shovel, according to BBC News, and started hammering the cockpit window trying to break survivors free.
Zayra Garza, an esthetician who had been driving co-workers home, told CBS News she pulled up to the scene and watched it unfold in real time. "It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock," she said. Her husband jumped out of their vehicle to help. She watched someone inside the plane trying to kick the cockpit window out from the inside while people attacked it from the outside.
Eventually the door opened. CBS News reports that three people who appeared to be teenagers rushed out first, followed by someone who looked like a pilot. A crew member then tried dragging out a passenger who appeared to be unconscious. A firefighter eventually climbed into the aircraft on a small ladder to pull out the last survivor while colleagues held a hose on the burning wreckage and others used rods to prop the door open. Officers helping with the door were repeatedly overcome by smoke, doubling over coughing before going back in.
One Dead, Five Hospitalized, Five Officers Treated
Laredo Police Department investigator Jose Baeza confirmed that one of the six people on board was pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of that individual had not been released as of the latest reporting. The five survivors were transported to local hospitals and are in stable condition, according to both CBS News and BBC News.
One vehicle on the highway was struck by the aircraft during the crash, though Baeza said it remained unclear exactly what part of the plane made contact. Five first responders were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation. No other ground injuries were immediately reported, which is somewhere between lucky and miraculous given that this happened on a busy highway at night.
This Is a NetJets Plane, Meaning This Is a Berkshire Hathaway Problem
NetJets, the fractional jet ownership company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, confirmed in a statement that the aircraft was one of theirs. "Our immediate concern is for the well-being of our Crewmembers, our passengers, and their families during this time," the company said, adding that it was activating crisis response teams and deploying experts to the crash site.
NetJets sells fractional ownership stakes in private jets, meaning the passengers on board likely paid significant money for the privilege of flying in exactly this kind of aircraft. The company is one of the largest private aviation operators in the world. Whether that changes anything about how the crash investigation proceeds remains to be seen.
Third Major Aviation Crash in Three Days
CBS News put this crash in a context that is hard to sit with. This was the third significant aviation accident in as many days. On Monday, a B-52 bomber crashed during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight people on board. On Sunday, 12 people died when a plane carrying skydivers crashed in Missouri.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the Laredo crash, with the FBI and FAA also involved, according to BBC News. Loop 20 remained shut down through at least Wednesday as investigators worked the scene. The NTSB has a full plate right now.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what we just watched. A burning corporate jet split in half on a highway in south Texas, and the people who made the difference between four survivors and zero were not some rapid-response aviation rescue unit. They were a woman driving her co-workers home, her husband, and two strangers who apparently keep a sledgehammer accessible. That is the story. Not the corporate statement from NetJets. Not the FBI involvement. The ordinary people who ran toward a plane fire at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday.
And yes, this is the third fatal aviation accident in three days in this country. A B-52 went down in California on Monday. Twelve people died in a skydiving plane crash in Missouri on Sunday. Whether that represents a genuine pattern worth scrutinizing or just the kind of clustering that happens in a country with roughly 45,000 flights per day is a question the NTSB will eventually have to answer. Right now the agencies investigating have more wreckage than they can process.
The one person who died in Laredo still hasn't been identified publicly. Five people are in stable condition in a Texas hospital because strangers refused to stand back and watch. The plane belongs to a company that made Warren Buffett billions. None of those things cancel each other out. Hold all of it at once.
