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Greenacres Learjet Co-Pilot Identified as Nathalia Gadelha, 20, Who Got Licence at 17
The family of the young pilot at the controls of a doomed business jet in South Florida has put a name to one of the nine lives lost in Sunday's Greenacres Learjet crash, identifying the aircraft's co-pilot as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras of Boca Raton. Her mother and stepfather confirmed her identity to the New York Post on Monday, November 2, 2026, hours after federal investigators began their work at the crash site and while officials had still not publicly released the names of anyone aboard. The identification turns a story that had until now been told in flight data, radio calls and debris fields into something more personal: a teenager who learned to fly before she could drive, who had been working as a commercial pilot for nine months, and who, her family says, was living the dream she had announced as a child after a flight with her father.
Filgueiras was the co-pilot, or first officer, of the Learjet 60 that left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas on Sunday, November 1, and came down at about 12:50 p.m. local time near Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, killing all nine people aboard. The jet plunged tens of thousands of feet in about a minute before striking the ground and erupting in flames, in a stormy South Florida afternoon that investigators are now examining for icing and turbulence. No one on the ground was reported killed or injured, though about 600 nearby residents were evacuated and a wide debris field closed roads around the site.
Key Points
- Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, of Boca Raton has been identified by her family as the co-pilot of the Greenacres Learjet 60 that crashed on Sunday, November 1, 2026, killing all nine aboard.
- Her mother, Camila, and stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, confirmed her identity to the New York Post; authorities had not officially released any victims' names as of Monday morning.
- Filgueiras earned her private pilot's licence at 17 while a senior at West Boca Raton High School, before she held a driver's licence, and had 1,300 hours of flying experience.
- She had worked as a commercial pilot for nine months and dreamed of becoming a commercial airline pilot; her family says she texted her boyfriend minutes before the crash about turbulence and ice.
- The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation; officials have not said which pilot was at the controls, and no cause has been determined.
What Happened
The identification emerged on Monday morning in the Palm Beach Post's live coverage of the crash, which reported at 9:42 a.m. Eastern Time that relatives had identified the co-pilot as a 20-year-old Boca Raton woman. The Post's account cited a statement to the New York Post from Filgueiras's mother and stepfather. The New York Post's own report, published on Monday, gave the fullest account yet of who she was: a Palm Beach County native who grew up locally, attended West Boca Raton High School, and would have turned 21 in January.
According to her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, 44, Filgueiras had accumulated 1,300 hours in the air and had been working as a commercial pilot for nine months. He told the Post that she sent a text message to her boyfriend, Justin, just 10 minutes before the aircraft went down. "She just said, 'I've got turbulence, I've got ice,'" Corteleti said. That message, if confirmed by investigators, would fit with the harrowing air traffic control audio already reported from the flight, in which a pilot reported ice, severe turbulence and a rapid descent, issued a mayday call, and warned that the aircraft was going to hit the ground.
Investigators have stressed that the audio alone does not settle what happened. The National Transportation Safety Board's go-team arrived in Greenacres on Monday to begin its formal examination of the wreckage, flight recorders and weather, and the agency has promised a briefing in West Palm Beach. As of Monday morning, the other eight people aboard had not been publicly identified, and officials had not said which of the two pilots was flying the aircraft when it began its fall. A Learjet 60 is flown by two pilots, and the captain, as pilot in command, holds final authority for the flight under federal aviation rules.
Background: The Greenacres Crash
The crash on Sunday afternoon was, in Governor Ron DeSantis's words on Sunday evening, a "cataclysmic" event that looked, from the ground, like a missile coming down and left a large crater. The Learjet 60, registered N722BD, was a 2004 aircraft listed for charter through a Delaware company. It departed Austin for the Bahamas and was over Palm Beach County in stormy weather, with thunderstorms across the peninsula near Lake Okeechobee and winds from the east at 15 mph gusting to 25 mph, when it entered a steep descent.
Flight tracking and air traffic audio reported earlier on Monday put the scale of that descent in stark terms: the jet fell about 27,000 feet in one minute, with descent rates reported at 10,000 and then 20,000 feet per minute, before tracking cut off. The pilot reported ice, an outside air temperature of minus 47 degrees Celsius, and turbulence strong enough to throw the aircraft up and down by hundreds of feet. Icing has emerged as a central line of inquiry for investigators, who will examine the aircraft's anti-ice systems, the weather the jet flew through, and whether ice built up on the wings or control surfaces in the minutes before the descent. The flight data recorder may have been damaged in the impact and fire, investigators have warned, which could make dashcam and other video, radar data and wreckage evidence especially important.
The human cost on the ground was, by a narrow margin, contained: no one on the ground was reported killed or injured, though debris spread over a wide area, roads were closed, and about 600 people in an adjacent community were evacuated overnight, with shelter and food provided. John I. Leonard High School was closed on Monday. On Monday, the Bishop of Palm Beach dedicated an All Souls' Day Mass to the nine victims, and a GoFundMe spokesperson said on Monday morning that the platform had not yet verified any fundraiser for the victims' families, a caution against the unverified appeals that quickly spread online after the crash.
Greenacres Learjet Co-Pilot Identified: A Pilot Since High School
Filgueiras's path into aviation began early, and it began at home. The middle of three sisters, she dreamed of becoming a pilot from a young age after being taken flying in her father's small Beechcraft Bonanza. Her mother recalled the moment she came home from a flight with her father and announced her ambition, and the family's initial disbelief giving way to support. She began pilot lessons in 2020, taught in part by her father, who had learned to fly for fun in 2018, and she earned her private pilot's licence in October 2023 as a West Boca Raton High School senior, before she had a driver's licence.
That achievement made local news at the time. In an interview with CBS12 as a 17-year-old, she joked about the contrast that delighted her: people would say she could not drive, and she would reply that she could fly. "I definitely do brag because people say, 'Oh, you can't drive,' and I'm like, 'Yeah, but I can fly,'" she told the station. The School District of Palm Beach County's Aviation Academy, which had introduced its programme that year, paid for her licence. She later said she liked being different, and that while some people found it strange that she could fly a plane but not yet drive a car, she found it funny and wanted her driver's licence badly too.
After school, Filgueiras graduated from American Flyers, an Addison, Texas-based flying school with a branch in Pompano Beach, Florida, and worked as an instructor at another school in Fort Lauderdale before moving into commercial flying. Her family says employers were impressed by her skill and enthusiasm. "Everybody was so impressed with her. They hired her because they knew how good she was and how much she loved it," her mother said. In a recent social media post, Filgueiras had written about flying with her boyfriend, noting how rarely two pilots under 21 hold commercial, multi-engine, instrument and instructor ratings together. Her stated dream was to become a commercial airline pilot one day, though her family said she was still too young to apply for a job at American Airlines.
Reactions and Quotes
The family's words on Monday were the most detailed public account of any victim so far, and they were marked by grief and pride in equal measure. Her mother, Camila, speaking from the family's Palm Beach County home, described a fear she had carried alongside that pride. "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 told the New York Post. "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," she said.
She added, of her daughter's death: "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." Her stepfather's account of the final text message, about turbulence and ice 10 minutes before the crash, has already become a central detail in public discussion of the flight's last minutes, though investigators have not yet confirmed the message or its timing as part of their official record.
Online, the identification also drew a different kind of reaction. Social media users had already been trying to identify the female voice heard in the air traffic control recording, and some posts zeroed in on Filgueiras's age and experience, questioning whether a 20-year-old should have been in the cockpit of a business jet. Aviation experts and commentators cited in coverage of the identification have pushed back on that framing: a co-pilot is the second in command, not the pilot in command, and federal rules require a co-pilot to be specifically qualified for that seat in that aircraft type. Filgueiras's 1,300 hours, her commercial and instructor ratings, and her nine months of commercial flying are, on the family's account, the record of a qualified professional, not a novice. Investigators have said nothing to suggest that either pilot's age or experience caused the crash, and no cause has been determined.
Why It Matters
The identification matters for two reasons. First, it begins the painful process of naming the dead, which is often the moment a disaster stops being a statistic and becomes a set of individual stories for a community. For Palm Beach County, where Filgueiras grew up, went to school and learned to fly, that story is a local one: a teenager featured on local television for earning her licence, a graduate of a local aviation programme, a young woman whose family shared posts of flying together. The other eight victims remain unnamed, and their families' decisions about when and how to confirm their identities will shape the days ahead.
Second, the identification sharpens, but does not settle, the investigation's central questions. The reported final message about turbulence and ice, the air traffic audio describing icing and a rapid descent, and the flight data showing a plunge of tens of thousands of feet in about a minute all point investigators toward the weather and the aircraft's handling of ice. But a co-pilot's identity is not an explanation. Only the NTSB's examination of the wreckage, the recorders, the maintenance history and the meteorological record can establish the sequence of events, and the agency has cautioned against drawing conclusions before that work is done. The distinction matters, because speculation about a young pilot's age risks obscuring the technical questions that will determine whether this was a weather encounter, a systems failure, a combination of factors, or something else entirely.
What Happens Next
The NTSB's go-team is now on site in Greenacres, gathering evidence and beginning the painstaking work of documenting the wreckage, interviewing witnesses and pulling radar, weather and maintenance records. Officials were expected to hold a press conference in West Palm Beach on Monday, though the time and place had not been confirmed as of Monday morning. That briefing, when it comes, is likely to be the first official update on the wreckage examination, the condition of the recorders, and whether investigators have recovered the flight data that could reconstruct the jet's final minute.
Separately, the families of the other eight victims may choose to confirm their identities in the coming days, as Filgueiras's family has done, or wait for an official release. The Federal Aviation Administration is supporting the NTSB's investigation, which will provide all official updates. A preliminary report, which typically lays out the factual record without a probable cause, is usually weeks away, and a final report can take a year or more. In the meantime, the evacuated residents around Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard are expected to return as roads reopen and the debris field is cleared, and the community's attention will turn to funerals, memorials and the families left behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was the co-pilot of the Greenacres Learjet? Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a 20-year-old from Boca Raton, Florida, identified by her mother, Camila, and stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, to the New York Post on Monday, November 2, 2026.
How old was Nathalia Gadelha and how experienced was she? She was 20 and would have turned 21 in January. Her family says she had 1,300 hours of flying experience, had worked as a commercial pilot for nine months, and earned her private pilot's licence at 17.
Have the other victims been identified? As of Monday morning, authorities had not officially released the names of any of the nine people aboard, and the other eight victims had not been publicly identified. Filgueiras is the first victim to be named, by her family rather than by officials.
What caused the Greenacres Learjet crash? No cause has been determined. The NTSB is investigating, with icing and turbulence among the lines of inquiry, after reports of ice, a rapid descent of about 27,000 feet in one minute, and a mayday call.
Where and when did the crash happen? The Learjet 60 crashed at about 12:50 p.m. local time on Sunday, November 1, 2026, near Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, Florida, after departing Austin, Texas, for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. All nine aboard died, and no one on the ground was reported killed or injured.
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