Military Trail Still Closed Monday Evening at the Learjet Crash Site, With No Reopening Timeline and the Crater Still Draining
Officials said Monday afternoon it was not clear when the closed stretch might reopen - the investigation is still collecting debris across half a mile, and the water-filled crater has to drain before work can finish there.
The Monday evening drive around Greenacres still runs into the same wall it hit on Sunday: Military Trail at the Learjet crash site is closed, and officials said on Monday afternoon that it was not clear when the closed stretch might be reopened, the Palm Beach Post reported in its live file. There is no reopening estimate to plan a commute around - the closure is open-ended, tied to a federal investigation rather than to a repair schedule.
Two pieces of work set the pace. The mobile home park beside the site remains closed off so federal investigators can continue collecting debris and evidence, from a field the National Transportation Safety Board measured Monday at roughly half a mile by four-tenths of a mile. And at the center of it, the crater the jet left when it hit the road at high speed - severing a water main underneath, which filled it with water - still has to drain before authorities can continue their work in it, officials said at Monday's briefing. Until the water, the debris and the evidence are all cleared, the roadway stays an investigation scene.
For the evening drive, the routing advice from this desk's earlier file stands and hardens: cross Palm Beach County anywhere but the Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard corridor, and treat the rest of the county's wet pavement with the same respect - the station's live feed read 76.1 degrees and overcast with a 68 percent Monday rain chance at staging, under a flood watch through tonight. The Traffic Desk will carry any reopening announcement the moment officials make one; as of Monday evening, they have not.
