Man killed on the ground after Philly plane crash is identified; Mayor Parker leads city town hall for residents; Roosevelt Mall reopens

Unity was the message of the night Wednesday as Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other city officials held a town hall to chart the likely difficult path ahead for community healing and rebuilding after last Friday’s devastating plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia.

The session, attended by more than 100 community members, was held at S. Solis-Cohen Elementary School, about half a mile from the site where a medical transport jet carrying six people crashed on Cottman Avenue.

Managing Director Adam Thiel said the city has conducted "multiple thorough searches of all the properties in the impact area," but that residents will likely continue to find debris from the plane crash. Anyone who finds what they believe to be aircraft debris should report it at NTSB.gov or call 911.

"That is simply the reality of the type of incident with which we are all dealing," Thiel said.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has commenced her town hall at S. Solis Cohen Elementary School in the wake of the tragic plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia Friday night.

The mayor announced two new resources that will be spearheaded by the city in the "near future," including a "recovery center" at the site of the crash to help with the area's restoration. Parker also said the city will start a "One Philly Fund," administered by her administration, to help the victims of the catastrophe.

At a memorial with seven crosses for each victim of the Northeast Philadelphia medevac plane crash, nearly 100 people gathered in song and prayer.

That was the scene at Cottman and Bustleton Avenues in the Castor Gardens neighborhood Wednesday evening, where neighbors came together to memorialize those who perished in the aerial tragedy.

The state is opening a "multi-agency resource center" to assist people and businesses affected by the Northeast Philadelphia plane crash, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency announced Wednesday afternoon.

The MARC office will be located at the Scattergood Building of Friends Hospital, 4641 Roosevelt Blvd., and will be open Thursday from 1 to 5:30 p.m., PEMA said.

The man who was killed on the ground in Northeast Philadelphia when a medical jet crashed last week has been identified.

First responders found Steven Dreuitt, 37, dead inside a vehicle on the 2300 block of Cottman Avenue after the plane crashed just after 6 p.m. Friday.

A.J. Brown said he will play Sunday for Trey Howard, the fourth grader who suffered a brain injury from using his body to shield his sister after last week’s plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia and then woke up after surgery to ask if he missed the Super Bowl.

“He’s a hero,” Brown said on Wednesday. “Stepping in to save his sister. You can tell he has great parents. He was raised right. For him to wake up and say ‘Did I miss it?’ It’s crazy. Something of that magnitude takes place and he’s worried about a football game. Of course, we want to do it for him.”

On Sunday, artist Roberto Marquez was around 150 miles from Philadelphia, in Arlington County, Va. There, the mural artist from Dallas decided to build a memorial to the people killed when a passenger jet collided with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., last Wednesday.

The artist put up 67 crosses at Gravelly Point, near the crash site, one for each person killed in the crash.

Along Bustleton and Cottman Avenues on Tuesday, streets that been choked with traffic days earlier were clear, no jams in sight. Some people were out grabbing cheesesteaks, pizza, and halal for lunch. Others picked up groceries or went to the gym.

There were still more police cars than usual and a few TV news trucks, but the scene was nothing like it was over the weekend, business owners said.

Most of the Roosevelt Mall will reopen on Wednesday, said Kristen Moore, spokesperson for Brixmor Property Group, which owns the mall.

The only businesses in the mall area that will remain closed are Raising Cane's and Dunkin, Moore said. Both are standalone stores located closer to Cottman Avenue and the crash site.

The section of Northeast Philadelphia where a medical transport jet crashed Friday is expected to reopen to residents and businesses as soon as Wednesday after days of investigation into the fiery catastrophe, which killed seven people and injured 24 others.

“We’ll be working literally through the night to clean the streets, to ensure that we have done thorough damage assessment on all the infrastructure,” Philadelphia Managing Director Adam K. Thiel said Tuesday at a news conference. “We really want to make sure that we’re going to be able to, as daylight comes, hopefully start to get everybody back into that area.”