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Panicked 911 callers struggled to make sense of what they’d just witnessed after a Learjet went down in Florida, with one telling dispatchers a “bomb” had gone off, according to audio obtained by Fox News Digital.
The Learjet 60 departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at approximately 10:37 a.m. Nov. 1, headed for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. Shortly before 1 p.m., the aircraft went down in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people on board.
Moments after the jet slammed down just off a busy road, witnesses could be heard telling 911 operators they were trying to piece together what they’d just seen.
PRIVATE JET WITH 9 PEOPLE ON BOARD CRASHES JUST MILES FROM MAR-A-LAGO
Investigators work at the scene of a plane crash in Greenacres, Fla., on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“There was an explosion,” one caller said. “I think an airplane or rocket, something fell from the sky. We felt our house shake, and then we heard an explosion when we ran outside.”
The caller compared the scene to a “bomb explosion,” saying her power cut out for a few seconds before coming back on.
Stepping outside to look, the female caller said she saw sparks and smoke, telling the operator, “it was black, it was dark, like it was burning.”
The calls came in at around 12:51 p.m., just after the plane crashed.
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Adam Robinson and his wife, Helen Sharp, were traveling with their two young children when the Learjet carrying them from Texas to the Bahamas crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Nov. 1. (Fox News)
The woman thought at first that the loud boom could have been lightning, but noted she “didn’t hear any, like, actual lightning sound either. It was like … an explosion sound.”
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Austin tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45, was killed in the crash alongside his wife, Helen Sharp, 40, their children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, the children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina, and couple Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
The pilots, Jeffrey Gregory and Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, were also killed.
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A map shows the Learjet’s flight from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas toward the Bahamas before it crashed in Greenacres, Florida. (Fox News)
Heavy rain and thunderstorms were sweeping across South Florida when the Learjet went down, and federal investigators say the weather will be a major focus of their probe.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced Monday that the cockpit voice recorder was recovered.
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“NTSB investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Learjet 60 that crashed on Nov. 1 near Greenacres, Florida,” the NTSB said on X.
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The cockpit voice recorder was found at the location of initial impact and is being evaluated in the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C. (NTSB)
Federal investigators said the voice recorder was found at the location where the plane went down. It will be evaluated at the NTSB’s Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
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Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.