Posted on 11/06/2026 10:22:39 AM PST by xxqqzz
A YOUNG co-pilot sent a chilling final text to her boyfriend just minutes before the private jet she was flying plunged from the sky, killing all nine people on board.
The 20-year-old warned her fellow pilot boyfriend about dangerous conditions in the air before the Learjet plummeted more than 27,000 feet in just over a minute.
The 20-year-old texted her boyfriend about dangerous conditions in the air minutes before the Learjet plummetedSource: Instagram/itsnatfilg Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was flying over Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday when she messaged her boyfriend around 12:40 pm, just ten minutes before the deadly crash.
“She just said, ‘I’ve got turbulence, I’ve got ice,'” her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, 44, told the New York Post.
“She texted her boyfriend, I think, at 12:40 p.m. and the accident was at 12:50 p.m.,” he added.
The young aviator, who had already logged around 1,300 hours of flying experience, frequently flew alongside her boyfriend and shared pictures and videos of their trips together.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-sun.com ...
Texting instead of paying attention... Just like the distraction in cars.
She didn’t have her cell phone in airplane mode!!
You know, because it interferes with a plane’s navigation, or something (unless you are paying the airline for it, then its totally OK)
I think you need to be totally focused on your task at hand especially if you are in a serious situation.
ATC: "What's the outside air temperature?"
Pilot: "Minus 47 degrees Celsius. We're managing the ice, but it is moderate turbulence." (She says in a clear calm voice)
ATC: "Let me know if you need anything else. I'm just working you into my airspace right now."
Pilot: "Now we're picking up precipitation. We need to climb." (Her voice is higher and she is clearly alarmed. This is the point where if she didn't know they were about to die, she should have)
She wasn’t the one flying the plane, so not quite like texting when driving. However, maybe her energy should have been directed towards what to do about the situation rather then telling her boyfriend about it.
If she is not PIC her job is to watch the pilot and learn (and ask questions), scan instruments and weather radar, and perhaps pointing out things the PIC could have missed.
Aviate , Navigate, Communicate.
Old pilot axiom. And how they got to be old.
Really?
Not many of us know when the end is coming.
I pray that no one is critical of us when we piss our pants at the end.
She should have been concentrating steering the weather radar and figuring out how to navigate a safe path through the weather system not spending critical time and focus texting her boyfriend
I have avoided being critical of her but this behavior is simply unacceptable and a flagrant violation of sterile cockpit procedures under critical flight and airmanship conditions.
If she had done this in check out in a sim she would failed the check out.
She had been flying with the PIC for a while and he was probably providing unacceptable poor command leadership for sterile cockpit and flight resource management
They were deviating as much as 700 feet of altitude. That’s severe turbulence not moderate.
No one knows when they lost parts of the tail - there was no hope at that point.
She should have been watching what was going on in the cockpit instead of texting her boyfriend at 35,000 feet and 450 knots.
Seems to me that when an airplane is encountering severe turbulence the sterile cockpit rule would apply.
What I find interesting is how a 20 year old finds a job as FO on a part 135 high performance aircraft. And it has been going on for quite a while.
So what connections allowed this? And who else was allowing this to happen? In my opinion only the best and most experienced should be considered.
It’s safer than driving a car, they said.....
How many cars have driven safely from Austin to the Bahamas?
What did you want her to do??
Apply the brakes??
Fool.
Name calling from the uniformed. Look up sterile cockpit guidelines.
I don’t believe they actually deviated the “600, 700 feet” in elevation when she said that. I think she was stating the vertical speed indication as in 600 to 700 feet per minute. The ADSB data is out there an iirc they were fairly level until a shallow climb just before happened to send them into a dive.
However, that exact plane was earlier involved in an incident near Teterboro where they did deviate nearly 1000 ft and were on a collision course with another plane when the ATC had to tell them to return to their authorized altitude immediately.
It was a female on the radio, possibly the same pilot and copilot as the fatal Florida crash but that’s not confirmed, and they stated their reason was “moderate turbulence” while the ATC shot back “That is not moderate turbulence. Are you experiencing severe turbulence?” They then acknowledged that they were.
A plane that had just flown through the area was asked by the ATC if they too experienced severe turbulence, but that pilot said, either “slight” or “moderate” (I forget).
So there might be more to the story to come out. Possibly that the plane was over-stressed in the Teterboro incident and should have been inspected.
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