Washington: As the US was recovering from a mid-air collision in Washington DC that left 67 people dead, it was hit Friday evening by another plane crash when a small aircraft crashed in Philadelphia in the nearby state of Pennsylvania setting several homes on fire. It was a medical flight, according to local news reports, carrying six people. CBS News reported that multiple homes are on fire in a neighbourhood new Roosevelt Boulevard and Cottman Avenue.

 Phillyburbs.com, a local news outfit, said witnesses on social media have reported seeing an orange flash near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping centre off the boulevard, which is what Route 1 is called as it runs through the city before the Bucks County border. Homes surround the shopping centre. The news site cited emergency services dispatches to say the aircraft crashed near the 7200 block of Calvert Street, a residential street, shortly after 6 p.m. Friday.

Authorities in Washington DC, in the meantime, said Friday they had recovered 41 bodies of the 67 killed in the mid-air crash involving an American Airlines flight from Wichita in the state of Kansas and a Black Hawk plane on a training sortie from a nearby military base. The passenger plane was on a landing flight path to the Reagan Washington National Airport, which is a major hub for air traffic out of the national capital handling 800 flights a day, when it crashed with the US Army’s Black Hawk helicopter.

The plane was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members and there were three US service personnel on the helicopter. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is the lead agency investigating the crash, has suspended flights of all helicopters over the Potomac River which flows by the Reagan Washington National Airport. 

(IANS)