A female pilot flying the Learjet later involved in a deadly Florida crash was previously reprimanded by air traffic control for understating the severity of turbulence.
The exchange took place over Newark, New Jersey, in May, when an air traffic controller questioned the aircraft’s unexpected climb, asking, “Why are you climbing?”
“We are just about to call you. We are experiencing moderate [turbulence] and unable to hold altitude,” the female pilot replied.
The controller responded sharply: “That is not moderate. Descend to 4,000 [feet] immediately.”
“If you can’t maintain altitude, that is not moderate—that is severe turbulence. Are you experiencing severe turbulence?” he continued.
The woman and a male pilot then answered, “Affirmative, sir,” before the recording ended.
It remains unclear whether the woman heard in the recording was Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20. She was the co-pilot aboard the Learjet that crashed in Palm Beach on Sunday, killing her and eight other people as investigators examine whether severe weather played a role.
The Learjet involved in the New Jersey turbulence incident carried the same tail number—N7226D—as the aircraft that plunged into the ground while traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas.
The aircraft was owned by Upper Jets, a private aviation company based in Fort Lauderdale, south of the crash site.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, was identified as the co-pilot aboard the Bahamas-bound flight that crashed in Florida
The fatal crash was captured on disturbing dashcam video, showing the jet plunging toward the ground in an almost vertical descent
Filgueiras is pictured behind the controls of the Learjet linked to both the New Jersey incident and the weekend crash, with the aircraft’s callsign visible on the dashboard
Filgueiras, who grew up in Palm Beach County, was profiled by local media after earning her pilot’s license in 2023 at age 17.
“I definitely do brag because people say, ‘Oh, you can’t drive,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I can fly,’” she told CBS12.
Her mother, Camila, frequently posted photographs of Filgueiras and her siblings traveling aboard private jets. Her father, Allan, also held a pilot’s license.
Camila told The New York Times: “She loved the freedom. It was completely different seeing the world from the top.”
Filgueiras appeared deeply passionate about aviation, and the Daily Mail found several social media videos in which she documented herself flying.
In one clip posted in September of this year, she can be seen at the controls of the same Learjet later destroyed in the fatal crash.
Dashcam footage of the disaster shows the aircraft dropping toward the ground at an extreme angle.
Aviation experts said the jet appeared to be traveling at close to the speed of sound.
The jet hit the ground and immediately exploded, sending chunks of asphalt up in the air as thick black smoke engulfed the crash site.
Pilots behind the controls of the same jet involved in the horrific smash on Sunday had a previous spat with an air traffic controller over turbulence in New Jersey, that previous flight path is seen here
An investigation is now being carried out federal authorities to determine what went wrong
The first passenger victims onboard the doomed jet were named as Adam Robinson, 45, and Helen Sharp, 40, and their two children, the Daily Mail revealed Monday.
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The family of four from Texas was traveling with their nanny and two friends, none of whom have been identified.
Robinson was an entrepreneur who set up tech company Retention and who regularly gave interviews about how to create a successful start-up.
Helen ran a communications firm called Influential PR and also owns a successful, Aspen-based pottery studio called Helen Sharp Ceramics. The couple lived in Austin, Texas.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said at a press conference Monday that a man on the ground had sustained a leg injury after being struck by debris near the crash scene.
Sunday’s crash came as Filgueiras and her male pilot, Jeff Gregory, 55, attempted to fly through two storm systems, known as cells.
Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp and their two young children are pictured. They were all killed in the crash
Robinson and his wife Helen Sharp are pictured left and second from left attending a friend’s wedding
It has been speculated by multiple experts that the plane may have fallen foul of ‘coffin corner’ while trying to reach a higher altitude clear of the storm systems.
At high altitudes there is an extremely narrow range between safe minimum speed and safe maximum speed. Going under one or over the other risks stalling the plane, or a loss of control.
The air traffic controllers in nearby Miami had given pilots permission to ‘deviate left and right’ due to ‘moderate precipitation… to the southeast’ that they described as ‘pretty nasty’ as the twin-engine business jet approached the area.
The controllers were then heard describing ‘moderate turbulence’ before Filgueiras’s tone swiftly became panicked as she realized the plane was in trouble.
She said: ‘Seven two two bravo delta, we’re descending 8,000… mayday mayday… we’re descending 10,000ft per minute.’
Seconds later, she screamed: ‘Declaring emergency, declaring emergency, we are in an overspeed condition.’
Her voice grew even more panicked as she said: ‘Descending 20,000ft per minute… we’re going to crash into the ground.’
The impact left a massive crater in the middle of the road, damaging nearby infrastructure
‘I’m here with you, talk to me,’ the air traffic controller said in an attempt to calm the situation.
Filgueiras said: ‘We are descending 22,000ft, and we are banking 60 degrees.’ ‘We’re out of time,’ Filgueiras then screamed in her final transmission.
In one harrowing moment, the pilot could also be heard reciting the Lord’s prayer just seconds before impact.
The Daily Mail has chosen not to publish the final seconds of audio, which are extremely distressing.
The flight had set off from Austin, Texas, bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas before its path abruptly ended just near West Palm Beach, according to flight data.
The impact left debris scattered across a significant distance and a massive crater in the road.
Outgoing Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters on Sunday: ‘It was a cataclysmic plane crash.
‘It looked like a missile going down and left a big crater on the side of the road.’