Victims of Florida plane crash include a 20-year-old copilot and tech entrepreneur and his family

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A 20-year-old woman who had been a licensed pilot since she was a teenager and a technology entrepreneur and his family were among nine people killed when a small jet crashed and exploded in South Florida, family members said.

Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was the copilot flying a Learjet from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, on Sunday when it crashed and exploded near West Palm Beach, her mother Camila Corteleti told the New York Post and New York Times.

Filgueiras earned her license in 2023 when she was a 17-year-old senior at West Boca Raton Community High School, according to local news reports at the time.

The crash also killed Adam Robinson, his wife, Helen Sharp, and their children, 4-year-old Emma and 2-year-old Charlie, according to a statement from the families of the seven passengers. The family lived in Aspen, Colo. Anita Maria Cetina, who helped care for the children, also died.

Two more victims were identified as Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr. The identity of the other pilot was not immediately disclosed.

“Our hearts are also with the families of the pilots, who are grieving alongside us,” the families of the seven said.

Parts of the business jet likely started to break off even before it slammed into the ground and erupted in a ball of flames in South Florida, killing all nine people on board, a federal investigator said Monday.

Video recorded by passersby captured the Bahamas-bound Learjet’s rapid nosedive Sunday afternoon before it exploded in Greenacres, about 7 miles southwest of West Palm Beach. Flames flickered around chunks of pavement lining the crater as shocked residents looked on in horror. Thick black smoke engulfed the crash site and little remained of the plane.

“Debris was everywhere. Debris hit my house. Everything was on fire. The road was on fire,” Anthony Blackmon, who lives near the crash site, told NBC affiliate WTVJ. “I’ve always seen it on the news, never thought it would happen so close to somebody like how it happened today.”

National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said during a news conference Monday that investigators found evidence the aircraft started breaking up before it hit the ground and that debris from the aircraft could be spread far and wide.

“We do have some indication that the aircraft was breaking up before impact,” Chapman said. “We may find parts of the aircraft some distance away from the actual impact site.”

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said key components of the jet’s tail may have been lost during the turbulence or as it nose-dived.

“If that happens you cannot control an airplane at that point. And that very well could explain the missile-like profile just before it hit the ground,” said Guzzetti, a former NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration investigator.

Weather conditions will be a major focus of the investigation, Chapman said. Rain pounded the region on Sunday, and one of the pilots reported icing conditions at a high altitude in communications with air traffic control.

Weather radar maps from the time of the crash that FlightRadar24 combined with the plane’s flight path seem to show it flying directly into a storm cell that was rapidly expanding upward. But Chapman said investigators still have to determine what the weather conditions were at 35,000 feet.

Chapman said the plane was originally equipped with a cockpit voice recorder that investigators hope to recover.

“We have a lot of work to do on scene,” NTSB investigator Timothy Monville said at the news conference. “This will be a several-day process, and the biggest obstacle that we’re going to have is recovering the major wreckage from the impacted crater on the roadway.”

The plane was heading east at 35,000 feet when the pilot started to report problems.

The pilot said ice was accumulating on the jet and that turbulence was jolting it by as much as 700 feet, according to air traffic control recordings captured by LiveATC.net.

“We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” the pilot told controllers.

The situation rapidly deteriorated.

The pilot requested permission to climb another 2,000 feet and then quickly declared an emergency as the jet lost altitude at an alarming rate.

“We’re descending 8,000 — mayday, mayday — we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute,” the pilot radioed.

“We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute,” the pilot radioed. Moments later, the pilot said: “We’re going to crash into the ground.”

Video shows the plane banking sharply to the right before crashing and exploding.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel G. Flores said at the news conference that the county “doesn’t have a clue” when residents who live near the crash site will be able to return to their homes as investigators continue to comb the area.

A shelter has been established for the residents of almost 80 mobile homes near the crash site, Flores said.

“Our concern right now is clearing the scene so that our residents can get back to normal,” he said. “We don’t really have a timeline as to when they are going to be able to comb through all the evidence and do everything they need to do, and that leaves our community looking for answers.”