A commercial plane carrying nine people plummeted into a South Florida neighborhood on Sunday, exploding into a giant fireball that appeared to miss homes before crashing near a busy highway. Everyone on board died, the nation’s transportation secretary said. Video recorded by people inside their cars captured the terrifying moment the Bahamas-bound plane fell from the sky, before crashing near the road and exploding. Flames flickered around patches of pavement lining the crater as people milled about, expressing surprise that it landed just yards from homes and inches from passing vehicles. Thick black smoke enveloped the crash site. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that the Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County at 12:50 p.m., calling it a “horrible tragedy.” The Federal Aviation Administration will send a team to support the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation, he said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said there were no immediate reports of people injured or killed on the ground. Read moreThe enigma of Ustica in Italy: Will the French archives be able to solve the mysterious accident attributed to a lost missile? “It was a catastrophic plane crash,” DeSantis told reporters at the scene. “It looked like a missile fell and left a big crater on the side of the road.” Rain lashed the region on Sunday. A flood watch due to excessive rainfall was in effect until Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service said. The plane had left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to the Bahamas, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities did not immediately say what caused the plane to go down or who was on board. The plane was heading east at 35,000 feet (about 11 kilometers) when the pilots reported turbulence, icing and precipitation and requested a climb of 2,000 feet (about 610 meters). Moments later, the plane went into a dive, first at 10,000 feet per minute, then at 20,000 feet per minute and up to 30,000 feet per minute, accelerating the plane beyond its design limits, according to air traffic control recordings and flight tracking data. A pilot declared an emergency and issued distress calls. The plane banked sharply to the right before abruptly crashing to the ground. Read moreAmazon cargo plane crashes at Miami airport, killing at least five minutes. Minutes before the crash, the pilot reported that ice was building up on the plane and that there was turbulence shaking it up to 700 feet, according to air traffic control recordings captured by LiveATC.net. “We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” the pilot told controllers. But the situation deteriorated quickly. After encountering precipitation and requesting to climb, the pilot declared an emergency when the aircraft began to lose altitude at an alarming rate. “We’re descending at 8,000 – mayday, mayday – we’re descending at 10,000 feet per minute,” the pilot said over the radio. “We are in an overspeed condition descending at 20,000 feet per minute,” the pilot said over the radio, before giving a devastating acknowledgment of what was about to happen. “We’re going to crash into the ground.” Jim Reynolds, a spokesman for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said the plane was a private plane. He could not immediately provide details about who was on the flight. Palm Beach County authorities are evacuating about 600 people from a nearby mobile home community as federal officials investigate the crash. The road will be closed until further notice, county officials said. (FRANCE 24 with AP)