Father recalls 20-year-old daughter’s final radio calls before fatal Florida Learjet crash: ‘She showed me what it is to be a hero’

Allan Filgueiras has listened to his 20-year-old daughter’s final radio transmissions repeatedly since a Learjet crash killed her and eight others in Florida on November 1. As a pilot who helped teach his daughter to fly, he hoped the recordings might explain what went wrong. Instead, he found himself overwhelmed by how calmly she responded as the aircraft plunged toward the ground.

His daughter, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, was the co-pilot of the Learjet 60 that crashed in Greenacres, Florida, while traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. During a November 6 news conference, her father spoke about the pride he felt hearing her final moments and the pain of being unable to help her.

“She showed me what it is to be a hero,” Filgueiras said, according to the Associated Press. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the crash and has not established its cause.

Nathalia’s final radio calls reveal the plane’s rapid descent

According to the Associated Press, Nathalia initially informed air traffic controllers that ice was building up on the aircraft as it encountered a thunderstorm. The Learjet experienced turbulence that sent it approximately 700 feet above and below its assigned altitude.

The situation deteriorated rapidly. As the aircraft descended at an extraordinary speed, Nathalia declared an emergency and reported that it was falling at 20,000 feet per minute.

Her father said he listened to those communications repeatedly, trying to understand what had happened. He also wished he could have been inside the cockpit with her, helping her through the emergency.

Nathalia’s ability to continue communicating during the descent impressed her father and experienced aviation professionals. Her instructor, Chris Kirk, said her final transmissions provided investigators with important information about the aircraft’s last moments.

Investigators also found pieces of the Learjet’s tail miles from the crash site, while the aircraft reportedly exceeded its design speed limits during the descent. In a November 9 update, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that investigators had recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the initial impact site. The recorder is now being evaluated at the agency’s laboratory in Washington, D.C. Although excavation work at the crash site is complete, investigators have not determined what caused the aircraft to crash.

Nathalia’s family pushes back against questions about her experience

Nathalia Filgueiras was just 20 years old when she died, but her family says her age shouldn’t overshadow what she’d accomplished as a pilot. The crash had already sparked false claims about the pilots involved, and some online commenters questioned whether Nathalia had enough experience to serve as a Learjet co-pilot.

According to the Associated Press, Nathalia had logged more than 1,300 flight hours and completed extensive training to earn her commercial pilot’s license and Learjet certification. Her instructor, Chris Kirk, recalled that an examiner was so impressed during her Learjet 60 check ride in March that he assumed she’d accumulated more than 5,000 hours.

Her family’s attorney, Stuart Grossman, said the November 6 news conference was intended to protect both her memory and her reputation.

For her father, aviation was something they’d shared long before she became a professional pilot. Allan Filgueiras first took Nathalia flying when she was 12 and later helped teach her. After landing her first flying job, she told him she couldn’t believe someone would pay her to do what she loved. “It was her happiest moment, to fly,” he recalled.

The crash also killed captain Jeff Gregory and seven passengers, including technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, their two children, and the family’s nanny, Ana María Ramírez Cetina. The NTSB has not determined what caused the crash.

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