Family members identified 20-year-old Nathalia Filgueiras as one of nine people killed when a private Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday. The aircraft was flying from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas when it went down during a heavy thunderstorm, according to Filgueiras’s mother, who spoke to The New York Times.
A statement posted by the passengers’ family named the other victims as Texas technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45; his wife, Helen Sharp, 40; their children, Emma, four, and Charlie, two; family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr; and the children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina. Media outlets identified the pilot in command as Jeff Gregory, 55, an experienced aviator from Pennsylvania.
The jet crashed at about 12:51 p.m. local time near a mobile home park in Greenacres. It exploded on impact, leaving a large crater and debris around the site. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said it was not believed that anyone on the ground had been killed or injured. National Transportation Safety Board staff later said they believed a person in a nearby car had suffered a minor leg injury.
At a Monday briefing, NTSB investigator Tom Chapman said investigators would focus on the weather and work to establish the conditions at altitude. He said the crew had reported manageable light, clear ice and moderate turbulence while flying at 35,000 feet, with an outside temperature of -47C. The crew then reported precipitation and requested clearance to climb to 37,000 feet.
Chapman said that less than 30 seconds later the crew reported a descent, followed by a mayday call. At about 12:48 p.m., the aircraft transmitted that it was in an overspeed condition and descending, though the rest of the message was unintelligible. Investigators said the plane may have begun breaking up before impact, and that recovering debris would be challenging. They did not expect to announce an immediate cause of the crash.
Filgueiras’s mother, Camila Corteleti, said her daughter worked for Upper Jets, the Fort Lauderdale-based charter company that owned the aircraft, and had loved flying since childhood. Filgueiras earned her private pilot’s licence at 17 and graduated from high school in Boca Raton in 2024, according to CBS affiliate 12 News. Aurora Aviation, which operated as Upper Jets, did not respond to a request for comment.
The victims’ family described Robinson and Sharp as devoted parents and said the children were the centre of their lives. It also paid tribute to Reed and Fehr, and said Cetina had cared for the children with tenderness and was part of the family.
Sources: The Guardian World.