With a sledgehammer and a shovel, volunteers raced to save passengers in Texas plane crash

The business jet barreled cockeyed down the dark highway, knocking down one light pole after another, an orange glow of sparks trailing it.From a distance, Ivan Franco thought it must be a car. But as he approached in his tow truck, he saw it was a plane — broken in half, its fuselage resting on its side, bright fire beginning to rise above. He stopped and rifled through the rescue kit his company keeps in the truck, grabbing a sledgehammer as well as three fire extinguishers, which he handed off to police officers.“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 — putting their own lives in danger to help those on board escape as smoke filled the cabin.Passersby helped save