Posted on 11/06/2026 10:04:47 AM PST by xxqqzz
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!”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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BS. I know plenty of young men who have done the same.
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?
Just ... dang
Prayers for her family 🙏🙏🙏
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.
That is why ex military were thought to be the best, they had gone through a hardening and harsh testing process to fly and then while in the military had flown when they had to, not just when it was acceptable to by civilian standards, which means they probably got to push the limits more and get a better feel for flying and dealing with challenges and a variety of conditions.
And I know that all 1,100 were not training, but she still had to pay $250 to $350 (or more) an hour to get hours toward that rating. Seems she was pushed along by “look-at-me parents - my child is a star” too quickly and needed more single and multi prop time to learn before going to jets.
Your best pilot bet is ex-military and captain for a commercial airline. Different FAA rules apply to commercial aviation (FAR part 121) vs charter companies (FAR part 135). Part 121 requires annual ground training ans sim rides every 6 months as well as specialized training. Charter pilot training is once a year although some may match airline grade standards. Private flying is safe but they’re not the same.
I associate non-ex military airline pilots with the birth of affirmative action, for decades high standards military flying didn’t produce female pilots and few black pilots so to meet quotas the civilian industry had to start relying on civilian aviation schools.
Today the general public doesn’t even associate airline pilots with being ex-military, which the vast majority aren’t anymore.
What I don’t understand is that they deviated to the south to avoid a large thunderstorm to the north and then flew right into a very fast rising convective cell which did them in. It was midday. Are such fast-rising cumulonimbus cells in front of and below you at FL37 not obvious to the naked eye? I understand those columns usually have the typical anvil-tops. I’ve read that they might not be visible below you because they get “lost” in the gray of other clouds at lower levels.
If a mechanical failure or icing happened not much a pilot can do the rate of speed it came down something happened beyond control.
They title is “Co-Pilot”. So much is made about the fact she’s a woman. So F’n what? The pilot was male. So f’n what?
There are times you do everything right and you’re still screwed. So far people have looked at the weather cause. The shifting heart of the storm, the inability to gauge the deadly dangers hidden in the clouds, the updrafts, downdrafts, ice and rain, and the terminal excess of speed that made recovery impossible. The NTSB will find the cause eventually and it will be interesting to read.
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