20 Dead in Four Days: A Breakdown of the Four Plane Crashes That Shook the U.S. This Week
A Marine fighter jet. A skydiving plane. A B-52 bomber. A private business jet on a Texas highway. Four separate aircraft came down across the United States in the span of just four days this week, leaving at least 20 people dead and sparking widespread concern about what is happening in American skies.
Experts say the answer is: nothing connected. But the sheer clustering of tragedies has been difficult to ignore.
What the Experts Say
Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, said there is no evidence linking the four accidents. "These are unrelated to each other, and each is unique in terms of its operation or type of aircraft, and so we will need to wait and see to see the results of these investigations to see exactly what might have happened in these," he said.
A key detail shared across all four crashes: none of the planes involved were commercial passenger jets. Two were military aircraft. The other two — a skydiving plane and a charter business jet — were regulated by the FAA but under significantly less stringent rules than those that govern major airlines. That distinction matters for context, though it offers little comfort to the families involved.
Crash 1: Marine F/A-18, Yakima County, Washington — June 13
The week's aviation troubles began Saturday when bystanders captured video of a massive fireball erupting on a mountainside in Yakima County, Washington, as a U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet went down during a routine training flight. The pilot ejected and parachuted to safety. The Marine Corps described the incident as a "non-fatal aviation mishap" and said an investigation is underway.
Crash 2: Skydiving Plane, Butler, Missouri — June 14
The following day brought the week's deadliest crash. A skydiving plane carrying 11 passengers and a pilot went down shortly after takeoff from Butler Memorial Airport in Butler, Missouri. All 12 people on board were killed. Several family members of the victims were standing at the airport and watched as the plane crashed. It was the deadliest crash of a skydiving plane in the U.S. since a twin-engine Beechcraft went down in Mokuleia, Hawaii, in 2019, according to the United States Parachute Association.
Skydiving aircraft are regulated under Part 91 of FAA rules, which generally applies to noncommercial flights. The requirements are more focused on the proper handling of skydiving equipment than on flight operations. The NTSB is investigating.
Crash 3: B-52 Bomber, Edwards Air Force Base, California — June 15
On Monday morning, a B-52 Stratofortress went down at 11:20 a.m. while attempting to take off from Edwards Air Force Base, northeast of Los Angeles. Eight crew members were killed. A towering column of black smoke rose from the base following the crash. The Air Force said the bomber was on a routine test mission at the time of the accident.
Crash 4: NetJets Cessna Citation, Laredo, Texas — June 16
Tuesday night brought perhaps the most dramatic scene of the week. A NetJets-operated Cessna Citation Latitude business jet carrying six people crash-landed on Loop 20, a major highway near the Texas-Mexico border, shortly before 10 p.m. local time. The plane had departed San José del Cabo, Mexico, en route to Austin when the pilots reported mechanical issues and diverted toward Laredo International Airport. The aircraft lost communication with the tower and went down roughly 2.5 miles short of the runway, striking a light post and slamming into a highway barrier. The impact ripped the tail from the fuselage.
One person was killed: Joshua Baer, CEO of Capital Factory, an Austin-based startup accelerator. The five survivors — two pilots and three teenagers — were taken to local hospitals. Passing motorists left their cars and used sledgehammers and shovels to smash windows and pull passengers to safety as flames burned through the fuselage. Firefighters entering the wreckage also rescued a small pet. Five police officers were hospitalized with smoke inhalation and later released.
Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño called the survival of five people "nothing short of a miracle." "While the loss of life is deeply regrettable, it is nothing short of a miracle that this tragedy did not become a mass fatality event," he said. "Several police officers and firefighters placed themselves in harm's way and risked their own life to rescue passengers."
The NTSB has taken the lead in investigating the Laredo crash. The FAA confirmed the plane was a 2016-model Cessna Citation Latitude with a 72-foot wingspan.
What This Week Means
Aviation safety experts are careful to note that clustering of unrelated accidents is not unprecedented. Each of the four crashes involved different aircraft types, different operating environments, and different regulatory frameworks. The coincidence of timing does not point to a systemic failure in commercial aviation, which by most measures remains extraordinarily safe.
Still, the week has renewed attention to the regulatory gaps between commercial aviation and the military and general aviation sectors, where the rules — and the safety nets — are notably thinner.
All four investigations remain ongoing.
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