PHILADELPHIA — A person in a car was the seventh fatal victim of the fiery crash of an air ambulance onto a busy Philadelphia street, authorities said Saturday, as investigators sifted through burned cars, damaged homes and charred debris for clues to determine why the aircraft plummeted shortly after takeoff.

Carrying six people, including a child who spent months in treatment at a hospital, the small jet went down just after departing from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport, creating what witnesses described as a massive fireball and leaving a chaotic street scene. At least 19 people were injured, though most were released from hospitals.

Authorities could not yet say why the jet crashed, and Adam Thiel, the city’s managing director, said it could be days — or longer — until officials are able to fully count the number of dead and injured across a massive impact area in a densely populated residential area.

Seven dead and 19 hurt, although the toll could go higher

As of Saturday morning, officials said, there were seven dead — six on the jet and the person in the car — and 19 injured.

There are “a lot of unknowns about who was where on the streets” when the plane crashed, and it is possible that the casualty figures will grow, Thiel said.

The crash scene was at least four to six blocks, and authorities were working to assess the damage, including going house to house to inspect the dwellings, Thiel said.

The plane hit the ground just after 6 p.m., during a busy Friday evening dinner hour, and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said it was aloft for a very short period of time before it crashed.

“All of sudden I heard like a ‘boom,’ and I thought it was a thunderstorm,” said Selkuc Koc, a waiter at the Four Seasons Diner on Cottman Avenue. “And I get up and look at the smoke and the fire, it was like a balloon, I thought it was a gas station blew up.”

One patron of the diner was hit and injured by a small but heavy metal object that flew through the window, Koc said.

Spokespersons for Temple University Hospital-Jeanes and Jefferson Health, which treated the injured, said most of the patients they saw were released by midday, but at least three remained hospitalized.

Child patient had just finished treatment for life-threatening condition

Of the six people on board the medical transport jet, one was a child who had just completed treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital, one was her mother and four were crew members, officials said.

A hospital spokesperson said the girl spent four months there receiving life-saving treatment for a condition not easily treated in Mexico.

“Her journey was one of hope and of aspiration,” spokesperson Mel Bower told The Philadelphia Inquirer. All the victims on the jet were from Mexico

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said they were all from her country. In a statement on the social media platform X, she mourned their deaths.

“Consular authorities are in constant contact with the families; I have asked the Foreign Affairs Secretary to support whatever is needed. My solidarity with their loved ones and friends,” she said in Spanish.

Neither Philadelphia officials nor plane owner Jet Rescue Air Ambulance have revealed the identities of the dead.

But XE Médica Ambulancias, a Mexican emergency service, identified one of its doctors, Raúl Meza, as a victim. In a post on X, it said he was the service’s chief of neonatology and assigned to a the ISEM Atizapán hospital, which is located in the State of Mexico near Mexico City.

In Veracruz, a city on the Gulf of Mexico, relatives of Josué Juárez said he was the aircraft’s co-pilot.