LEARJET MISSES MOBILE HOMES BY MERE FEET AS 600 RESIDENTS FORCED OUT OF PARK STREWN WITH BODY PARTS

New York Post

 

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Learjet misses Florida mobile homes by mere feet as 600 residents forced out of park strewn with ‘body parts’

By Mary K. Jacob

Published Nov. 2, 2026, 4:56 p.m. ET

 

Two mobile homes in a Palm Beach County trailer park came within feet of being obliterated when a private jet crashed into the street outside on Sunday.

 

The homes survived. Their neighbors still can’t go home.

 

The Learjet 60, carrying nine people from Austin to the Bahamas, tore into Military Trail near Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres shortly before 1 p.m., gouging a crater into the pavement and torching the roadway. Everyone on board was killed.

 

Next door sits the Green Acres mobile home community at 3033 South Military Trail, where a pair of units closest to the impact zone, Lots 3 and 5, stand just steps from the blast. Neither was struck head-on.

 

“None of the homes were directly impacted other than debris,” Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores, whose District 3 includes the park, told The Post, likening it to a “miracle” that no one else was impacted.

 

Flores walked the scene himself and saw wreckage piled on the roofs of the nearest trailers.

 

“I was on the site, and all I could see was debris on them. I don’t know if anything penetrated the structure itself, but there was debris there on the rooftops,” he said.

 

The jet struck nothing but asphalt and sidewalk, he added, with no cars passing at the moment of impact. One driver who had just cleared the area walked away with deployed airbags and minor treatment. Anthony Blackmon, who lives roughly 500 feet from the crash site, told NBC Miami that debris slammed into his home.

 

The near miss did little for the park’s residents, who were cleared out wholesale on Sunday and bused to a shelter at the Greenacres Community Center.

 

“We estimate that it’s anywhere between 400 to 600 individuals, we don’t have a precise number,” Flores said.

 

The American Red Cross set up cots and blankets, and the county trucked in portable showers. By Monday, Flores said, “there’s approximately 40 that are remaining,” with most evacuees bunking with friends or family.

 

The holdup is grim. Investigators are combing a half-mile debris field for evidence and remains, and nothing moves until they’re done.

 

“There’s pieces of the body parts everywhere,” Stephanie, a representative for the park’s management office, told The Post.

 

“Unfortunately, what we don’t know is when they’re going to be able to get back into their homes, because it’s still a scene, an accident scene or a crime scene, and they’re combing through all the evidence and body remains,” Flores added.

 

Residents fled with little more than the clothes on their backs, and many ran outside to gawk at the wreckage only to be locked out of their own street. Their cars and work trucks are frozen in place as evidence.

 

“They’re not able to grab their belongings. They’re not able to move their vehicles,” Flores said, recalling his Monday morning visit to the shelter. “And a lot of them were asking, ‘Hey, what’s going to happen? I need to go to work. I need to be able to grab my work truck’ or whatever it may be.”

 

Mother Nature isn’t helping. Crews spent Monday pumping water out of the crater to reach what’s left of the jet, fighting a deluge that Flores said had been pounding the area “nonstop for the last probably 48 hours.” The impact also ruptured a water main, which he suspects helped smother the burning fuel.

 

Green Acres pitches itself online as an affordable, tidy manufactured home community close to shops and schools. Flores said it’s a mix of owner-occupants and renters spread across roughly 75 homes.

 

“It’s probably been there closer to 50 years,” he said.

 

As for damage, management says it has none to report so far.

 

County Administrator Joe Abruzzo has asked Gov. Ron DeSantis for an emergency declaration that would unlock funding for displaced residents and nearby businesses, warning the area could stay closed for an extended stretch. Flores said the county is weighing hotel vouchers and temporary housing. DeSantis, who toured the scene Sunday, called the crash “cataclysmic.”

 

Federal investigators are probing whether the jet began breaking apart midair after its crew reported icing while flying into a fast-building thunderstorm.

 

Flores, a military veteran, said the scene was familiar to him but not to his constituents.

 

“I’ve been in the military. I’ve seen things like this happen before, but I know those community members probably have never gone through anything like this,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get our people back into their homes soon.”

 

The nine people killed aboard the doomed Learjet included Austin tech mogul Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen, their two young children, the family’s nanny and two close friends. Robinson, who founded and ran software firms Retention.com and RB2B, cut his teeth on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, according to his LinkedIn.

 

The $2 million jet was flown by Jeff Gregory, 55, a veteran pilot from Pennsylvania, alongside 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras of Florida, whom The Post previously revealed earned her pilot’s license as a high school student.