WorldGreenacres, Florida · Americas
Florida Learjet Crash: Family Identifies 20-Year-Old Co-Pilot
All nine people aboard the Learjet died in the crash in Palm Beach County, Florida. The co-pilot had earned her pilot's license at 17 while still in high school.
By MarcelUpdated:
Automatically translated from German · may contain errors · Read the original
Update
According to TMZ, citing sources close to the family, those aboard the Learjet were a family of four from Texas — 44-year-old tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson of Austin, his wife and their two children — as well as close friends.
The co-pilot of the Learjet that crashed in Florida on Sunday, Nov. 1, was a 20-year-old pilot from Boca Raton, according to her family. Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, was the co-pilot, according to her family; her mother gave the name to CNN, according to The New York Times, and to The New York Post, according to Chron. All nine people aboard were killed in the crash.
Mayday call shortly before impact
The Learjet 60 was headed from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. The crew reported icing and moderate turbulence, requested clearance to climb, and then issued a mayday call. We reported on the Learjet crash near Greenacres on Nov. 1.
In air traffic control recordings, the crew reports that the aircraft is going too fast and descending at about 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) per minute. The final radio transmission says: "We're going to hit the ground."
The plane came down near a mobile home community in Greenacres, in Palm Beach County. No one on the ground was injured, and about 600 residents were evacuated. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the crash; the cause remains unclear.
Pilot's license at 17, before a driver's license
Filgueiras, the daughter of Brazilian parents, earned her private pilot's license in 2023 at age 17. At the time, she attended West Boca Raton Community High School and completed her training through the Palm Beach County school district's aviation academy. She did not yet have a driver's license at that point.
She became known online for a post in which she wrote: "I don't even have a driver's license, but I'm a pilot now." When people teased her for not driving a car, she reportedly often replied that she could fly a plane instead.
She became a commercial pilot at 18 and a flight instructor at 19, and by 20 she was flying jets. According to her mother, she had more than 1,300 flight hours and had been working for the company Upper Jets in Fort Lauderdale for about nine months.
Mother doesn't know who was at the controls
According to the broadcaster 6abc, her license qualified her to fly this Learjet model, but not to act as pilot in command on the flight. Her father told the news agency Associated Press on Monday that he was not ready to talk about the tragedy.
Her mother said she did not know the other pilot and did not know which of the two was flying the aircraft at the time of the crash.
