9 killed in 'cataclysmic plane crash,' including 20-year-old female co-pilot
A Learjet 60 traveling from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas to the Bahamas crashed near Cresthaven, Florida, around 12:50 p.m. on Sunday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Everyone on board was killed. The co-pilot of the airplane has now been identified. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that all nine people aboard the aircraft perished in the crash. Dashcam footage of the crash shows the plane flying nose-first at an incredible speed into a Palm Beach County road and exploding into a fireball filled with debris. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told reporters at the site of the crash, "Obviously this was a cataclysmic plane crash. It looked like a missile going down. It left a big crater on the side of the road." The governor noted that so far there were no reports of any fatalities or injuries among people who were on the ground at the time of impact. Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores noted, however, that roughly 600 people were affected by the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and is set to hold a press conference on Monday. The co-pilot has been identified as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras. Filgueiras' mother, Camila, and her stepfather confirmed to the New York Post that the young aviator was the co-pilot of the doomed Learjet. According to a recording of air traffic control radio calls reviewed by CNN, Filgueiras reported ice buildup on the aircraft, an outside temperature of -52.6 Fahrenheit, and moderate turbulence. Shortly thereafter, she told the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center, "We're descending 8,000 — mayday, mayday! We're descending 10,000 feet per minute!" "We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute," Filgueiras said. "We're going to crash into the ground!" The global flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange shows the jet with the tail number N722BD dropping from 35,025 feet to 8,750 feet in just over two minutes before the data stream cut out. The aircraft's final recorded ground speed was over 268 miles per hour. The Post reported that the female crew member's final remarks captured in the audio recording were, "Holy f**k we're out of time." Filgueiras was featured in a WPEC-TV report in October 2023, where she boasted about securing her pilot's license. "I definitely do brag because people say, 'Ooh you can’t drive,' and I’m like, 'Yeah, but I can fly,'" she said at the time. "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," she added. "I think it's funny, and I now want my [driver's] license really bad." Filgueiras also appears to have been the user behind the TikTok account "learjet_girl," which features videos taken in Learjet cockpits with hip-hop music accompaniment.