Family members on Monday identified a young Florida pilot as one of nine victims of a plane crash in Palm Beach county that occurred during a heavy thunderstorm.
Nathalia Filgueiras, 20, was co-pilot of the private Learjet 60 that was en route from Austin-Bergstrom international airport in Texas to North Eleuthera airport in the Bahamas on Sunday when it suddenly plummeted out of the sky, her mother told the New York Times.
It crashed at about 12.50pm local time, exploding on impact, leaving a giant crater in the ground, and scattering debris all around the crash site near a mobile home park in the city of Greenacres.
Burning crater seen on ground after Florida plane crash – video
Camila Corteleti told the Times that her daughter worked for Upper Jets, a private charter firm based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that owned the aircraft, and had been passionate about flying since childhood.
“She loved the freedom. It was completely different seeing the world from the top,” Cortelini said, adding that her daughter enjoyed plane spotting at local airports as a young girl.
Filgueiras graduated high school in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2024, having already obtained her private pilot’s license, according to the Palm Beach CBS affiliate 12 News.
It is not yet known who the chief pilot of the aircraft was. Upper Jets did not respond to a request for comment.
None of the other victims from the crash had been identified by late morning Monday. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were at the site of the crash, and expected to give a media briefing at 1pm EST.
Air traffic control (ATC) audio from the final moments of the flight feature a female voice reporting a buildup of ice on the jet’s wings, and a request for permission to climb to 37,000ft.
Shortly afterwards, the woman declared a mayday, reporting that the plane, with the tail number N722BD, was descending at more than 20,000ft a minute, and that “We’re going to crash into the ground”.
The recording ends with the woman shouting, “Holy fuck, we’re out of time,” and air traffic controllers trying to re-establish contact.
Multiple videos circulating on social media capture the Learjet striking the ground almost vertically, and at a high rate of speed.
Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, said on Sunday it was “a cataclysmic plane crash … that looked like a missile going down.” He said it was not believed anybody on the ground was killed or injured.
Investigators will focus on weather conditions at the time of the crash, which took place during an outbreak of severe weather and thunderstorms in south Florida that briefly closed Miami international airport and forced commercial airliners to divert to other airports.
Bob Clifford, a veteran aviation expert and attorney, said the actions of the pilots and air traffic control would be particularly scrutinized.
“Fundamentally, these people flew into a thunderstorm, and into the red zone, and tried to navigate that, and it just doesn’t work,” he said.
“These are great planes, I’ve flown many times in a Lear 60, and they’re like rocket ships. There’s is just not a lot of margin of error up there. There’s going to be a lot of finger pointing here about why the pilots did what they did, why ATC [air traffic control] allowed them to do it, and who knew what and when.
“It seems to me that ATC maybe should have been more proactive about where they were allowing this aircraft to fly, and I think that’s something that’s going to be looked at by the NTSB.”
Federal Aviation Administration personnel were assisting NTSB investigators on the ground on Monday, according to Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, who called the incident “a horrific tragedy” in a post on X.
Bombardier, which owns the Learjet brand, told the Miami Herald in statement: “We cannot comment on the potential cause of this accident until the investigation is complete, and we will fully support the investigating authorities and cooperate as needed.”
The Catholic diocese of Palm Beach dedicated an All Souls’ Day Mass on Monday to the nine people who died, the Palm Beach Post reported.
