Tragic Learjet co-pilot Nathalia Filgueiras’ instructor calls her his ‘most naturally gifted’ student: ‘That young lady was born to fly!’

The 20-year-old co-pilot on the doomed Learjet that crashed in Florida last weekend was remembered by her flying instructor as “the most naturally gifted pilot” who was “born to fly!”

Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras — who earned her pilot license in high school, even before she could drive — “aced” all her flying exams, longtime instructor Chris Kirk said alongside a selfie of them beaming together in the cockpit.

“She was without a doubt the most naturally gifted pilot I have ever taught, and I have been teaching for 40 years!!” he posted on Facebook while proudly saying he was one of her first instructors. “That young lady was born to fly! There was not a check ride that the examiner was not blown away!”

I still want to know who ponied the bucks for all this flight time? 1,100 hours in a Lear isn’t cheap. Not to mention the other in type hours she had to get along the way to achieve a private license, commercial rating (that’s 200 hours I believe), multi-engine rating, and instrument rating?

The hardest part about aviation is not handling the aircraft or knowing every answer to the certification tests. It’s knowing what level of risk you are willing to take based on your experience and knowledge.

I don’t know the flight history of the male pilot flying, but I doubt the female pilot monitoring had significant experience with icing and severe turbulence. Operating the weather radar on a Lear 90 is also complicated, requiring an understanding of how the radar beam information is affected by airspeed, dish radius, proximity to clouds, and modes, all of which require practical experience in the air to rely on its display for navigation around severe weather.

There’s a sense that pilots develop the ability to anticipate situations that exceed their comfort level. I don’t know what pressure Wheels Up puts on their crews to complete a flight, but overconfidence has killed many more pilots than overcautiousness. It’s always hard to tell your passengers we’re diverting to an alternate due to weather, but sometimes its the only safe call.

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