The young co-pilot of the doomed plane which smashed into the ground in Florida earned her license at the age of just 17, and learned to fly from her hobbyist father.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, ‘loved the freedom’ of flying and secured her permit before she had even learned to drive, according to her mother and old interviews which have resurfaced since the horror crash.
Camila Corteleti confirmed to The New York Times that her daughter was behind the controls of the Learjet when it plummeted to the ground in West Palm Beach close to Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago country club on Sunday.
Officials are investigating the cause of the crash, which killed all nine people on board.
Filgueiras’ heartbroken mother said her daughter earned her pilot’s license at 17, and had been working for Upper Jets, a private charter firm based in Fort Lauderdale.
‘She loved the freedom,’ Corteleti said. ‘It was completely different seeing the world from the top.’
She also told the New York Post that she always feared her daughter’s flying ambitions would one day ‘take her away’.
‘I wanted her to live her dream, but I knew that her dream was going to be the thing that would take her away from me,’ she said.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, was piloting the Learjet 60 on Sunday when it crashed near West Palm Beach
Experts have speculated that the jet, worth $2 million, was potentially downed by what is known as coffin corner
An investigation is now being carried out by federal authorities to determine what went wrong
‘I knew that a plane was gonna take her away from me. I always knew it but I was so proud of her. I know she was living her dream.’
The young pilot’s father, Allan Filgueiras, who is a recreational pilot, taught her how to fly, and she used to enjoy watching planes take off from Boca Raton Airport, her mother said.
When Filgueiras was a senior at West Boca Raton High School, she spoke with CBS12 about earning her Private Pilot’s License before she knew how to drive.
‘I definitely do brag because people say, “oh you can’t drive,” and I’m like, “yeah but I can fly,”‘ she told the local news station in October 2023.
‘I like being different than everyone, so to me I think it’s cool that like it’s not really an opportunity, I just didn’t do it, and this is how it ended up,’ she added.
‘But I think it’s cool. Some people think that it’s weird that I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car, I mean I can but, a lot of people think it’s funny. I think it’s funny and I now want my (drivers) license really bad.’
Filgueiras grew up in Palm Beach County and previously featured in a local media report after first getting her pilot license in 2023 at the age of 17
The impact left a massive crater in the middle of the road, damaging nearby infrastructure
Filgueiras attended Ground School before securing her license, which involves two-to-three years of theory training and flight simulations, along with 40 hours of flight time with an instructor and ten hours solo piloting.
Her social media celebrated her flying achievements, including a photograph posted on Facebook showing the wing of a plane over a cloudy sky.
Her father wrote beneath the image that he was ‘a proud dad of a super pilot’, while her aunt, Tamara Filgueiras, added: ‘I am a proud aunt and both of you are super pilots’.
Corteleti also often shared images of Filgueiras and her siblings traveling on private jets.
Horrifying audio of the fatal crash in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, revealed that Figueiras’ co-pilot said the Lord’s Prayer during their final moments.
While he prayed, Filgueiras could be heard saying that the Learjet 60 had banked 60 degrees, meaning it was flying sideways.
The cause of the crash, which happened eight miles from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club, remains unclear
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Moments later, the plane crashed in a fireball by the side of the road, killing all nine people who were on board.
The identities of the others onboard have yet to be released, with officials set to hold a press conference and share more information later on Monday.
Initial speculation has pointed to stormy weather as a possible cause for the crash, which happened as the $2 million business jet was flying from Austin in Texas to the Bahamas.
Some aviation experts have suggested the plane may have fallen foul of ‘coffin corner’ while trying to climb above two storm systems, known as cells.
Coffin corner is a phenomenon whereby the jet’s minimum safe speed and maximum safe speed converge into a very narrow range at high altitude, making it extremely difficult for a pilot to maintain a safe speed.
If the plane goes too slow or fast it will stall and quickly become uncontrollable.
