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A desperate search for survivors has been launched after a small plane carrying hurricane relief supplies to Jamaica crashed into a lake.
Authorities have said just minutes after takeoff from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, the aircraft crashed in Coral Springs, Florida.
The plane took off at 10.14am local time, according to a spokesperson for the City of Fort Lauderdale, which owns and operates the local airport.
Five minutes later, Coral Springs police and firefighters arrived at the crash scene, reported the Beaumont Enterprise.
Coral Springs Deputy Fire Chief Mike Moser stated: ‘We do have our police department here with their divers as well, they’ll be conducting a recovery mission shortly.
‘We were unable to find any victims or any large pieces of fuselage on our initial dive. We have not found an entire plane yet, we believe that it may be broken into smaller pieces, we don’t know yet of course, this is very preliminary.’
Emergency services from Coral Springs and Coconut Creek are on the scene.
It is currently unknown how many people were aboard the plane and no casualties have been announced yet.
In their latest update, the police said ‘no homes sustained major damage.’
Jamaica has recently been relentlessly hit by Hurricane Melissa as the Category 5 storm left a trail of destruction behind itself.
The Caribbean American community in Broward County, where the plane took off from, had collected relief supplies to help hurricane efforts.
The plane that crashed today was, reportedly, carrying such supplies to assist Jamaica.
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