Volunteers raced with sledgehammers to free crash survivors

volunteers with – In Laredo, Texas, motorists including a tow-truck driver and others rushed to a late-night business jet crash with smoke filling the cabin and fire rising above the wreckage. One passenger died and multiple people survived, including three teenage passengers,

The first thing Ivan Franco saw looked like a car barreling down a dark highway.

Then he got close enough to realize it was a plane—broken in half. its fuselage resting on its side. orange fire already climbing above the wreckage. He pulled over his tow truck and ran his hands through the rescue kit his company keeps there. He grabbed a sledgehammer and three fire extinguishers. handed the equipment to police officers. and started making his way toward the cabin as smoke swelled inside.

“At that moment, you don’t think much about what to do, because I knew the plane could explode since it was on fire,” Franco told The Associated Press in Spanish. “My idea was to try to break the windows because the pilots hadn’t come out yet.”

Franco was one of several motorists who happened across the crash in Laredo, Texas, late Tuesday night and rushed to help passengers escape before fire and smoke turned the situation worse.

Police were also on the scene quickly. Officials said their teamwork with civilians helped save lives.

“The officers and the good Samaritans that went to the scene, our firefighters that responded — I do also want to commend each and every one of them,” Laredo Police Chief Mike Rodriguez said during a news conference Wednesday. He said he asked his staff to track down all the civilians who helped.

The business jet involved was a Cessna Citation Latitude twin jet. The FAA said it departed Tuesday evening from the Mexican resort city of San José del Cabo and was bound for Austin. Texas. The FAA said in a statement the aircraft was operated by NetJets. a company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. which lets people buy part ownership in private jets. NetJets said in a statement that it was cooperating with authorities.

The crash happened after the pilots reported mechanical problems while requesting an emergency landing at a nearby airport. The fuselage came to rest across a concrete barrier, while the tail broke off and fell onto a lower section of roadway.

One person was killed: Joshua Baer, described as a leader in Texas’ technology and startup sectors. Three teenage passengers and two pilots survived. as did a person in a truck struck by the plane as it crashed. Authorities have not released more detail about the passengers’ connections to one another.

Investigators combed through wreckage Wednesday for clues to the cause.

The scene was chaotic, and for some of the people who pulled over, the wreckage didn’t register as real until the smoke and the sound set in.

Zayra Garza, an esthetician driving her co-workers home when she saw the crash, recorded video as her husband ran to help. “It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock,” Garza said. What frightened her most was the fire. “I was concerned that it could have just exploded at any time.”

Her video shows people trying to free those inside. Garza saw people leave their cars to try to smash the cockpit glass. The footage shows the aircraft’s door popping open slightly from inside as a voice cries “Help!. Help!. Help!” The rescuers strain to lift the door farther open. and the three teenagers dart out—followed quickly by one pilot. and then by another.

Other motorists joined the effort. Franco swung his sledgehammer through heavy smoke. Others struck at the window with a shovel and tools taken from their own vehicles.

But the cockpit windows are designed to resist catastrophe. They accomplished little more than spiderwebbing the glass with small cracks. Airplane windshields have multiple layers of glass and are designed to remain structurally sound even if the outer layer shatters. The windows must be able to withstand a bird strike at cruising speed and hold up to extreme pressure differences at high altitudes.

“They are basically bulletproof,” said retired airline pilot John Cox, who is CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

Police officers tried to remove the final person inside—Baer—as smoke thickened. Officers doubled over coughing after turning away from the smoke. Eventually firefighters with oxygen masks were able to get inside.

Firefighters also removed a dog from the plane that was suffering from smoke inhalation. The dog was turned over to animal control and was expected to survive, according to Jose Baeza, an investigator with the Laredo Police Department.

Five officers were treated for smoke inhalation. The five people who survived the crash were also released from a hospital.

The crash unfolded on the northbound lanes of the highway. As the plane came down, its wing struck a truck traveling southbound. The driver of that vehicle survived, Baeza said.

Later, officials and community leaders focused on why the death toll was not higher. Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño called it “nothing short of a miracle that this tragedy did not become a mass fatality event,” adding that the late hour and the quick action of first responders helped limit casualties.

On social media, people praised the motorists who stopped to help, sharing the story of ordinary drivers turning into emergency responders.

For Franco, the moment was not about heroism—it was about momentum and fear. He said that as he tried to help, his only thought was getting people out of the plane. But the work came with a constant, tightening dread.

“You’re in constant fear,” he said. “You don’t know what situation you’re in.”

It was the third significant aviation accident in as many days in the U.S. A B-52 crashed Monday during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California and killed all eight people aboard. On Sunday, 12 people were killed when a plane on a skydiving outing in Missouri crashed.

Investigators continued working Wednesday, sifting through wreckage while families and the wider public tried to understand how a trip that began in San José del Cabo ended on the highway outside Laredo—and how quickly smoke, fire, and design limitations turned seconds into a life-and-death race.

Laredo Texas plane crash Cessna Citation Latitude Joshua Baer NetJets FAA volunteers smoke inhalation Ivan Franco Mike Rodriguez