Co-Pilot of Doomed Palm Beach Learjet Was a 20-Year-Old Who Learned to Fly From Her Dad and Texted Her Boyfriend Minutes Before the Crash — What Her Mother Said

The young aviator earned her wings before her driver's license, but her final flight left behind a troubling text to her boyfriend, a desperate cockpit exchange and a mother's confession that made her daughter's death even harder to bear.

On Sunday, November 1, 2026, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, was aboard a Bahamas-bound Learjet that crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, killing all nine people inside. In recordings of its final moments, a two-word plea and a second voice heard behind the emergency calls offered a heartbreaking glimpse of what happened aboard.

By Tuesday, November 3, her family had also shared what she texted just minutes before the crash. And her mother revealed a fear she carried long before that Sunday flight, even while watching her daughter build the life she wanted.

Nathalia Reached the Cockpit Before She Could Drive Herself There

Long before Nathalia worked aboard a jet, she flew with her father in his small Beechcraft Bonanza. He took up flying for fun in 2018, and those trips gave his daughter a very definite idea about her future.

Her mother, Camila Gadelha Corteleti, remembered Nathalia coming into the bedroom after one of those flights and announcing that she would become a pilot. Camila objected, but her husband and Nathalia's stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, supported the ambition.

Nathalia began formal lessons in 2020, with her father also helping teach her. By October 2023, the West Boca Raton High School senior obtained her private pilot's license at 17, before she even had a driver's license.

Yes, she could take an aircraft into the sky before she could legally drive herself down the road. And when someone brought that up, she had an answer ready. "I definitely do brag because people say, 'Oh, you can't drive,' and I'm like, 'Yeah, but I can fly,'" she told CBS12 at the time.

The School District of Palm Beach County's Aviation Academy paid for her license after introducing the program that year. For a teenager already determined to make flying her career, that support helped her move beyond those early outings with her dad.

Nathalia, the middle of three sisters, grew up in Palm Beach County in a Brazilian family. Flying appeared in the family's social media posts, too, with relatives sharing trips aboard private aircraft.

But Nathalia wanted to make a living in the cockpit. She graduated from American Flyers, the Addison, Texas-based flight school with a branch in Pompano Beach, Florida, and subsequently worked as an instructor at another school in Fort Lauderdale before taking another pilot job.

According to her family, she accumulated about 1,300 flight hours and worked as a commercial pilot for nine months. Her 21st birthday would have been in January.

Her longer-term ambition was to fly for a commercial airline, although her family said she remained too young to apply to American Airlines. She was already doing work she loved while waiting to become old enough for the next opportunity.

In a recent social media video with her boyfriend, Justin, she proudly pointed to their qualifications. "How often do you see 2 pilots under 21 with a commercial, multi-engine, instrument, CFI/CFI-I [Certified Flight Instructor/Certified Flight Instructor – Instrument]," she wrote over the video.

Those credentials included flight instructor and instrument instructor qualifications. Her mother said employers recognized both her ability and her enthusiasm.

"Everybody was so impressed with her. They hired her because they knew how good she was and how much she loved it," Camila told the Post.

On Sunday morning, Nathalia returned to an aircraft for a flight from Texas to the Bahamas. And before it ended, she contacted Justin.

Before the Emergency Calls, There Was a Text to Her Boyfriend

The Learjet 60 departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at 10:37 a.m. Eastern Time, bound for North Eleuthera Airport. Alongside the two crew members were seven passengers, including a couple traveling with two young children, a family caregiver, and two other people, according to CNN.

Their route carried them over South Florida, where scattered storms moved through the area. About 10 minutes before the crash, Nathalia sent Justin a message. Her stepfather, 44, described its contents afterward.

"She just said, 'I've got turbulence, I've got ice,'" he recalled.

Turbulence and ice. Two problems she mentioned to her boyfriend while still aboard the aircraft. Her family's account did not establish that she knew then how little time remained.

But the radio calls that followed initially described conditions the crew believed they could manage. At 12:47 p.m., the aircraft was over Palm Beach County and turned right toward Freeport in the Bahamas.

At 12:47 P.M., the Crew Still Described the Ice as Something They Could Handle

In radio calls captured by LiveATC, Nathalia reported an outside temperature of minus 47 degrees Celsius, approximately minus 53 degrees Fahrenheit. "We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence," she told the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center.

The turbulence reportedly caused altitude changes of as much as 700 feet. Even so, that early transmission sounded very different from the chilling calls that came next.

The controller told the crew to ask if they needed anything else while the aircraft was being worked into the controller's airspace. At 12:48 p.m., the crew reported precipitation and requested permission to climb to 37,000 feet. Air traffic control approved the request. "Now we're picking up precipitation. We need to climb," the crew said in audio quoted by FOX 13.

Then, within that same minute, the crew declared an emergency.

At 12:48 P.M., Desperate Radio Calls Became Their Final Words

The aircraft began losing altitude rapidly. Over the radio came a MAYDAY call, followed by figures that grew more frightening as the crew spoke.

"We're descending 8,000. Mayday, mayday. We're descending 10,000 feet per minute. Declaring emergency 722 Bravo Delta. We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000 feet per minute."

The reported descent rate reached 20,000 feet per minute, roughly 333 feet every second. The reference to an "overspeed condition" described a serious problem aboard the aircraft. It did not, by itself, establish what caused the emergency, but it could become a possible explanation in the investigation.

The controller asked what the crew needed. Seconds later, Nathalia or her co-pilot made a transmission that stripped away any uncertainty about the danger she believed they faced.

"We're gonna crash into the ground."

The controller kept trying to reach them. "November two Bravo Delta. I'm here with you. Talk to me," they said. I'm here with you. Amid the emergency calls and rapidly changing altitude, someone on the ground was still listening, still trying to help.

At 12:49 p.m., the crew reported a descent rate of 22,000 feet per minute, approximately 367 feet per second, and a 60-degree bank. The recording, also published by TMZ, captured voices struggling to communicate as the aircraft continued downward.

Then came the short instruction heard in the final exchanges, as inaudible screaming could also be detected:

"Look outside."

The controller called again, asking how the crew could hear. Behind those urgent transmissions, another voice appeared to be saying something very different.

Another Voice Emerged Behind the Calls for Help

Some words in the final exchanges were difficult to make out, and published accounts transcribed portions of them differently. In a separate account, the New York Post reported that Nathalia appeared to call out, "Look out the window, Jeff!"

The outlet also described a male voice apparently reciting part of the Lord's Prayer behind her calls.

"Who art in heaven, hallowed be the name," the voice appeared to say.

But the apparent prayer was heartbreaking to hear described alongside the emergency transmissions. While Nathalia called out the aircraft's movements, someone else aboard appeared to turn to words of faith.

The Post's account of the closing transmissions also described a female crew member exclaiming:

"Holy [expletive] we're out of time."

About 90 seconds separated the earlier discussion of manageable ice and turbulence from the desperate emergency calls and eventual silence. Flight-tracking data showed the aircraft losing more than 27,000 feet in approximately one minute before tracking stopped.

Below, people near a busy Palm Beach County road were about to feel the impact.

At About 12:50 P.M., Neighbors Felt the Explosion

The Learjet struck Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North, near a mobile home community in Palm Beach County. The FAA placed the crash at around 12:50 p.m.

Video showed the aircraft diving nose-first before an enormous fireball erupted. Thick black smoke rose above the neighborhood, and the impact tore a crater into the roadway, buckling and breaking the pavement.

FOX 13 identified the location as Palm Springs, while the Post referred to the nearby Greenacres mobile home community. The crash site was roughly nine miles from President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

The jet, which the Post described as having an estimated value of $2 million, reportedly clipped a tree and brought down power lines. Nearby residents felt the explosion inside their homes and went outside to find out what happened.

"I heard and felt the boom," Palm Beach County resident Andrew Mannino said. "The power immediately went out." He then noticed smoke and a large black cloud.

Sheriff's deputies and county fire rescue personnel rushed to the scene. There were NO SURVIVORS aboard. At a Sunday news conference, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described the force of the impact.

"Obviously, this was a cataclysmic plane crash. It looked like a missile going down," he said. "It left a big crater on the side of the road."

At that early briefing, officials had not publicly identified the victims or established whether any were Florida residents. Nathalia's family confirmed her identity to the Post early Monday.

Authorities initially reported no injuries on the ground. On Monday, the National Transportation Safety Board said a man in a vehicle leaving the immediate area sustained a leg injury.

According to the records cited by CNN, the disaster was the second-deadliest U.S. aviation crash of 2026, following a June skydiving plane crash in Butler, Missouri, that killed 12 people. Flight Safety Foundation data cited by the outlet also identified it as the deadliest crash involving a Learjet 60.

The videos showed how violently the flight ended. Investigators still needed to establish why the crew lost control.

By Monday, Investigators Faced Difficult Questions About the Final Minutes

At the NTSB's Monday briefing, officials made clear that weather was a major focus of the investigation. They examined icing and turbulence, along with conditions at the aircraft's altitude of about 35,000 feet.

Although CNN described the jet passing through a strong storm cell before descending, the NTSB said it had not yet confirmed whether the aircraft flew through an active thunderstorm. Investigators also had evidence suggesting some breakup occurred before impact. They had not yet identified enough recovered parts to say precisely what separated or when.

Senior investigator Timothy Monville arrived at about 7 p.m. Sunday and began working with local law enforcement to establish the crash site's boundaries and locate pieces beyond the main impact area.

The team included specialists in aircraft systems and structures, recorders, and drone documentation. Weather and air traffic control experts also assisted, alongside the FAA and representatives of Learjet.

Recovering the main wreckage presented a difficult physical problem: it was embedded in a crater in the roadway, with water collected inside.

Small pieces of debris were scattered around ball fields, businesses and homes. Timothy said early estimates of the debris field varied, with figures of roughly half a mile by four-tenths of a mile still being assessed.

Maintenance records indicated that a cockpit voice recorder had been installed on the aircraft. Investigators had yet to establish whether it remained aboard at the time of the crash or whether it could be recovered.

The radio audio already circulating publicly was separate from any recording investigators might obtain from that device. There was another important question officials could not yet answer: who was handling the controls?

Nathalia's voice on the radio did not establish whether she flew the aircraft during the emergency or communicated while the other pilot flew. At Monday's briefing, the NTSB said that remained under investigation.

Questions about the turn toward Freeport, who requested or authorized it, and the decisions surrounding the attempted climb also remained open. Investigators had not determined the precise impact speed or identified an established pattern of similar accidents involving the model. They also planned to examine the history of the specific aircraft.

The NTSB asked witnesses to provide photographs or video and urged residents to leave debris in place and contact authorities. Family assistance specialists worked on site while investigators tried to restore neighborhood access as quickly as the recovery allowed.

A final explanation would take longer. "We will not be determining the probable cause of the crash while we're here on scene, nor will we speculate about the cause," an NTSB board member said.

For Nathalia's family, the wait for answers began while they were still trying to absorb that she would never come home.

Nathalia's Mother's Words Revealed the Fear She Could Never Shake

Camila watched her daughter choose aviation and earn the qualifications to work in it. She saw how happy flying made her, even as the thought of losing her remained frighteningly close.

"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 from her Palm Beach County home.

Then she put that fear into even more heartbreaking words.

"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."

Pride and fear existed together for Camila. Her daughter wanted the cockpit, and she wanted her daughter to have the future she worked for. "I know if she could pick a way to go, this would be her way to go, but I didn't want it to be so soon," she said.

Nathalia spent years preparing for the life she wanted. Her mother wanted her to have so much more time to live it. Our condolences go to her family and to all who lost someone in this tragedy.