PHILADELPHIA — Ash, smoke, and a chemical smell rained on Elizabeth Griffin in the parking lot of a Northeast Philadelphia T-Mobile store on Friday night.

The 31-year-old had been in the store when she heard the boom.

“Then you just kind of felt a force hit you,” Griffin said. She turned to look out the windows and saw “a mushroom cloud of fire go up in the sky.”

It is one of many horrifying images of the fatal Northeast Philadelphia plane crash that Griffin and other witnesses said they cannot stop replaying.

The crash killed all six passengers onboard the medical transport jet, which was taking a young girl and her mother back home to Mexico after four months of lifesaving treatment at Shriner Children’s Philadelphia. On Saturday, city officials said that one person on the ground also died and at least 19 people were injured when the plane crashed onto busy Cottman Avenue during the evening rush hour.

Many others are left with emotional scars from watching the plane fall from the sky and seeing up close the carnage left in its wake. At first, some witnesses said, they were not sure whether they had seen a missile strike, a bomb explosion, or some other act of violence.

“I thought there was a war starting,” said Pedro Evangelista, a 33-year-old Amazon delivery driver who lives nearby.

The gruesome scenes arrived suddenly, pulling witnesses from their Friday night plans and into what looked like a horror movie.

Evangelista was driving to an AutoZone store to get a new radiator when the plane crashed in front of him. As he ran toward the wreckage, he said, he saw a man on fire.

“He was running, trying to get help,” Evangelista said. “He didn’t say anything.”

At the Four Seasons Diner, a customer sitting in a booth was knocked unconscious after a piece of metal came flying through the window, manager Ayhan Tiryaki said.

Griffin was at the T-Mobile store in hopes of straightening out an issue with her phone plan. She had gone there straight from work and was anxious to get home for a cozy night in with her wife.

After hearing the boom and seeing the fiery explosion, she and about 10 other customers and employees ran outside and stared at the blaze for a couple of minutes. Some, like Griffin, did so silently. Others were screaming and crying.

Griffin didn’t want to get closer. She wanted to go home.

So she got into her Honda Civic, navigated around a piece of plane debris, and drove around the lot for several minutes, until she could find an exit that wasn’t blocked by fire or pieces of the wreckage.

Griffin called her wife, stuttering and repeating herself as she tried to relay what she had just witnessed.

“I just started telling her, ‘There was an explosion,’” Griffin said.

When Griffin got back to the couple’s home in Fox Chase, “I just held her. I hugged her really hard,” Griffin said. “We were just expecting to have a night in with wine and sushi. … It was a reality check that people can be here one second and gone the next.”

Neighbors’ homes shook from the crash

Many residents living near Roosevelt Mall were about to sit down for dinner when they saw an orange hue seep from their windows into their living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens.

“My living room lit up — it was like a big orange ball, and then a boom,” said Robert Fosbennet, 62.

Residents said the sight was paired with an unfamiliar noise.

“I heard what was like a motor, and then there was a sonic boom,” said Sue Levy, 69, who lives a block from Fosbennet.

Homes began to shake, prompting the Levys to go outside.

“We opened the door and smoke was very acrid, burning your eyes,” she said.

Another block over, Kenia Rodriguez, 34, rushed down a flight of stairs to find her mom sobbing in the kitchen.

“She’d seen the reflection of the explosion against the panes of the kitchen door,” said Rodriguez, who like so many of her neighbors ran in the direction of the chaos to learn more and “do something,” if even possible.

The blocks surrounding Roosevelt Mall are diverse, neighbors said, with many speaking a language other than English as their first language.

Across the neighborhood, residents said, people jumped into action.

“Everyone who heard the crash was running to the mall to help out,” Fosbennet said.

Rachel Handis, 34, said her instinct was to stay inside and hide.

Huddled with her dalmatian, Pongo, Handis called her parents — who live down the street — to make sure they were OK, she said, then downloaded the Citizen app to learn more about what was happening just a mile away.

Handis watched the livestreamed videos in horror and disbelief that such a tragedy could happen in the tight-knit neighborhood she has called home her whole life.

In the hours after, “it was nice to see that everybody came together trying to help,” said Handis, who owns a pet supply company. “There were so many police, so many firefighters. That was reassuring to know that in a bad situation everybody comes out.”

But “I wish this whole thing did not happen,” she added. “I’m still shaken.”

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