Lawsuit filed over 2 deaths in January air ambulance crash in Philadelphia

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The families of two of the eight people killed earlier this year when an air ambulance crashed in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit on Monday, claiming the medical air transport company and others negligently caused their deaths.

The wrongful death case was filed by the estates of Dr. Raul Meza Arredondo, a pediatrician, and Lizeth Murillo Osuna, the mother of a girl who was flying home to Mexico after being treated at a Philadelphia hospital.

All six people on board the Learjet 55 were killed, along with two people on the ground. More than 20 people were hurt.

About a minute after takeoff from Northeast Philadelphia Airport on Jan. 31, the Tijuana, Mexico-bound plane crashed into a busy neighborhood, "erupting in a massive explosion that engulfed multiple vehicles and houses and sent fiery debris raining down on terrified and helpless bystanders,” the plaintiffs alleged in the lawsuit.

The crash occurred near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping center in the Rhawnhurst neighborhood.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said the voice recorder on the plane was not working and that the crew made no distress calls to air traffic control.

The defendants are the Guadalajara air ambulance company, Med Jets, S.A. de C.V., which does business as Jet Rescue, along with unspecified others who were responsible for the plane's design, manufacture, maintenance and inspection.

Messages seeking comment were left Monday for a Jet Rescue spokesman, for lawyers listed as representing Med Jets in a related federal lawsuit, and for a Jet Rescue Air Ambulance facility in Florida.

Arredondo and Osuna were both described in the lawsuit as Mexican citizens. Arredondo lived in Atizapan de Zaragoza, Osuna in Ensenada.