Nine people were killed aboard a Learjet 60 that crashed in a fireball on Sunday in a residential area in Palm Beach County, Fla., the authorities said.

The plane, a midsize business jet, had departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

In a separate statement, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that those aboard had died.

There was no information available about the identities of those aboard the plane or whether anyone on the ground was injured.

Photos and video posted online showed a small plane plunging nose first into the ground and exploding. Footage showed the plane crashing near a busy thoroughfare close to traffic, and leaving a fiery crater in the roadway.

Just before the plane crashed, a pilot radioed air traffic controllers that the plane was facing rain and “light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” according to archived communications between the pilot and air traffic controllers in Miami on Sunday afternoon.

The pilot asked if she could climb to 37,000 feet, but soon after, she desperately declared mayday, a life-threatening emergency, to air traffic controllers.

She screamed that the plane was “descending 20,000 feet per minute.”

“We’re going to crash into the ground,” she said before shrieking, “We’re going to die!”

For several minutes after that, air traffic controllers tried unsuccessfully to communicate with the plane.

The plane crashed just outside the boundaries of the City of Greenacres in unincorporated Palm Beach County, according to Austin Lee, a city spokesman. Greenacres is about four miles west of Palm Springs.

It was not immediately clear what led up to the crash.

The F.A.A. and National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday that they were investigating the crash.

Johnny Diaz contributed reporting.