Horror Florida airplane crash co-pilot was 20-year-old who bought her licence in highschool
The co-pilot heard screaming in terror seconds before the Learjet 60 she was flying smashed into the ground in a giant fireball has been identified as a protégé flyer
Nathalia Gadelha was confirmed as the co-pilot
The pilot heard screaming in terror as a private jet smashed into the ground has been identified – as a 20-year-old protégé flyer who got her licence while still in high school.
Nathalia Gadelha was confirmed as the co-pilot of the Learjet 60 which plunged into the ground in Palm Beach County, Florida on Sunday at 12.50pm. The private jet was flying from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas when it plummeted 25,00ft in just over a minute before slamming into a residential neighbourhood near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-largo estate.
Horrific footage shows the moment the plane burst into a fireball in Greenacres, Palm Beach County. Chilling audio recorded in the cockpit just moments before the plane nosedived straight to the ground heard Gadelha shouting: “We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000ft per minute.
She had her private plane pilot’s licence before she could drive(Image: itsnatfilg/Threads)
“We’re descending 8,000 – mayday, mayday – we’re descending 10,000ft per minute.
“We’re going to crash into the ground. Holy f**k we’re out of time.”
Gadelha’s mother confirmed to the New York Post that it was her daughter sitting in the co-pilot’s seat during the tragic flight.
The protégé pilot, who grew up in Palm Beach County, made headlines in local media back in 2023 when she got her private pilot’s licence at the age of 17 – before she earned her driver’s licence.
“I definitely do brag because people say, ‘Oh, you can’t drive,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I can fly,’” she told CBS12 in an interview at the time.
Gadelha started taking pilot lessons in 2020 but was also taught by her amateur flyer dad. Her mother regularly shared posts about the family flying in private jets together.
Dashcam footage showed the moment the plane crashed(Image: X)
The young pilot clocked up 88 air hours and flew everyday at the time of passing her knowledge test.
“I like being different than everyone, so to me I think it’s cool that like it’s not really an opportunity,” Gadelha said.
“I just didn’t do it, and this is how it ended up. But I think it’s cool. Some people think that it’s weird that I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car, I mean I can but, a lot of people think it’s funny. I think it’s funny, and I now want my [driver’s] license really bad,” she added.
Gadelha’s dream was to become a commercial airline pilot one day.
The crash created a huge fireball(Image: @X)
In one of her final social media posts, Gadelha shared a video of herself and her boyfriend, Justin, flying together. “How often do you see 2 pilots under 21 with a commercial, multi-engine, instrument, CFI/CFI-I [Certified Flight Instructor/Certified Flight Instructor – Instrument],” she wrote in the overlay text.
Terry Tozer, an ex airline pilot with over 20 years in the aviation industry, fears the plane went through a deadly trio of circumstances which sparked the disaster.
All nine on board the plane died(Image: itsnatfilg/Threads)
He told The Sun the most likely cause was poor weather with heavy rain and thunderstorms moving through Palm Beach County at the time which he believes made flying the aircraft to safety near impossible.
He said: “I think it was weather related. You would normally make strenuous efforts to go round a thunderstorm. In thunderstorms you can get severe icing, severe turbulence and both of those are potentially hazardous. It would appear that the storm cell they entered was developing very rapidly and it looks as if it caught them out.
“So if they accrued an awful lot of ice on the airframe, that may have affected the handling of the aircraft.”
Released airline logs show the pilot requested permission to climb to 37,000 feet to avoid flying through the storm, believing the jet could handle the weather in front of her at the time.
She told air traffic controllers: “We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence.”
It is then believed she attempted to make her way through the tough conditions in poor visibility, but the lack of control could have caused the aircraft to travel at speeds so fast it caused part of the tail to break apart.
