Florida Crash Co-pilot’s Heartbreaking Text to Boyfriend 10 Minutes Before Disaster Surfaces

• Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a 20-year-old co-pilot, sent her boyfriend a text message roughly 10 minutes before her Learjet 60 crashed in Florida
• The young aviator had earned her private pilot's licence at just 17, before she ever held a driving licence, and had logged over 1,300 flight hours
• Nathalia was among nine people who died when the aircraft went down in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, on Sunday, 1 November

A 20-year-old co-pilot who had been chasing her dream of flying since her teenage years sent her boyfriend a chilling text message just minutes before her aircraft plunged to the ground in Florida.

Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was one of nine people killed when a Learjet 60 crashed in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, on Sunday, 1 November.

Around 12:40 pm, approximately ten minutes before the crash, she messaged her boyfriend, Justin, describing the frightening conditions aboard the plane.

"I've got turbulence, I've got ice," she reportedly wrote, according to her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti.

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Justin was also a licensed pilot, and the couple shared a deep passion for aviation.

Nathalia Gadelha's remarkable aviation journey

Despite her young age, Nathalia had accumulated more than 1,300 hours of flying experience.

She first obtained her private pilot's licence in 2023, at the age of 17, while still completing her final year at West Boca Raton Community High School in Florida, meaning she could fly a plane before she could legally drive a car.

In a 2023 interview with WPEC-TV, she laughed off the quirk with characteristic charm.

"Some people think that it's weird that I can fly planes, but I can't drive a car. I think it's funny," she said.

Her social media pages captured her growing career in the skies, filled with photographs taken from cockpits and moments that reflected a young woman truly at home in the air.

She had been working as a commercial pilot for roughly nine months before the accident. While she was qualified to operate the Learjet 60, she was not authorised to serve as pilot in command. Nathalia would have turned 21 in January.

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Final flight of the Learjet 60

The Learjet 60 had taken off from Austin, Texas, and was bound for the Bahamas when conditions deteriorated over Florida.

The aircraft was cruising at around 35,000 feet when the crew began reporting turbulence, ice build-up, and precipitation to air traffic control.

Recordings of radio communications captured the escalating crisis on board.

The pilots declared an emergency as the aircraft began losing altitude rapidly, with reports indicating it was descending at a rate of 10,000 feet per minute. Nathalia's voice could also be heard in those recordings, expressing alarm as the situation spiralled beyond control.

The young woman who had worked tirelessly to build a career in aviation since her school days died while doing the very thing she had dreamed of her whole life.

Dashcam captures the moment the jet crashed

Earlier, YEN.com.gh reported that a Learjet 60 private jet crashed onto a multi-lane highway in Florida on Sunday, November 1, 2026, killing all nine people on board and leaving a scene of fire and wreckage across the road. No one on the ground was injured.

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The aircraft had taken off from Austin, Texas, and was bound for the Bahamas when it went down, leaving a large crater in the carriageway.

Dashcam footage, shared by the BBC on October 2, 2026, captured the harrowing moments before and after the impact.

Source: YEN.com.gh