Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras made one of the hardest flight training checks look easy, a fellow pilot commented in an Instagram tribute dedicated to a young copilot who died in an accident involving a Learjet in Palm Beach County.
Hanna Amarante, a classmate from the training classes, addressed her letter to Nathalia.
“Dear Nathalia, these past few days have felt like the longest days of my life,” Amarante wrote. “I’ve tried countless times to put into words what I want to say, but somehow no words ever seem like enough.”
Filgueiras, 20, of Boca Raton, was a copilot of the Learjet 60 that went missing near Greenacres on November 1. All nine people on board were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board leads the probe; no cause has been identified yet.
Amarante wrote she and Nathalia bonded quickly.
“When we first met, I quickly knew we would become friends,” she wrote. “We had two things in common, and that was our love for aviation and good food.”
The friend remembers encountering Filgueiras after she took her flight check.
“I still remember running into you at school after you finished your instrument checkride,” Amarante wrote. “I asked how it went, and you so effortlessly told me how easy it was and how much fun you had. I remember looking at you like you were crazy because it was one of the hardest checkrides I had ever completed.”
“That was one of the many things I admired about you,” she wrote. “You had such a natural gift for flying that so many of us wish we had.”
Other pilots, who also trained with Nathalia, said the same. Chris Kirk, one of Filgueiras’s first flight instructors, posted on Facebook that she was “the most naturally gifted pilot I have ever taught.” Having forty years of teaching experience, Kirk described her as being “born to fly.”
Filgueiras was born in Florida to Brazilian parents and grew up in Boca Raton. Her father, Allan Filgueiras, started flying as a hobby in 2018. She began training as a private pilot in 2020 at an aviation academy funded by the Palm Beach County School District.
She had acquired her private pilot license in 2023, at 17, while studying at West Boca Raton Community High School. She had received her license long before she obtained her driver’s license.
As Amarante wrote, her classmate often discussed her future plans with her.
“As time went on, we had countless conversations about your dreams of one day becoming a jet pilot,” she wrote. “I knew deep down that you were going to get there, and sooner than you probably even realized.”
“I loved watching your determination throughout your flight instructing days, working so incredibly hard toward the future you envisioned for yourself,” she continued.
Filgueiras trained with American Flyers in Pompano Beach, where she earned a commercial, multiengine, and instrument rating, along with an instructor certification. She worked as an instructor in Fort Lauderdale after she graduated from high school in 2024.
Later, she became an employee at Upper Jets, which is a private charter firm based in Fort Lauderdale. Her mother, Camila Gadelha Corteleti, told the New York Post that Filgueiras had accumulated more than 1,300 hours of flight time and was working as a pilot for nine months. Filgueiras would turn 21 this January.
“Nathalia, you accomplished so much in such a short amount of time, and hope you knew just how proud I was of you,” Amarante wrote. “You proved to so many young women that dreaming big, working hard, and refusing to give up really can take you places you once only imagined.”
Yet Amarante noted that she loved Nathalia for her character more than her piloting abilities.
“But as much as I admired the pilot you were, I loved the person you were even more,” she wrote. “You loved so deeply, and you put the Lord at the center of everything you did. You were constantly bringing our conversations back to Him, and I will forever be grateful to have had a friend I could share my faith with.”
“It brings me so much peace knowing, without a doubt, that you are in Heaven at peace with your father,” she wrote.
Kirk also wrote in a similar manner, saying he hopes Nathalia will continue to fly among the clouds of heaven.
Amarante recalled Nathalia’s dedication to people closest to her.
“Your love for your family, your friends, and Justin was another trait I always admired,” she wrote. “You had a way of making everyone around you feel so loved, and I hope you knew how deeply you were loved in return.”
Just ten minutes prior to the crash, Filgueiras texted her boyfriend to tell him about the air conditions. The text said simply, “I’ve got turbulence, I’ve got ice.”
In her speech during the November 6 press conference in Coral Gables, her father mentioned the girl’s love of flights and their joint flying. “She was gifted. She was gifted and my soulmate,” Allan Filgueiras said. He called his daughter a hero who kept fighting the emergency and said that he listened many times to her last radio reports.
He told CNN that flights were something special that they share. “I feel like my life is missing,” he said.
Her mother told the New York Post that she feared for Filgueiras’ career all her life. “I knew that a plane was gonna take her away from me,” Corteleti said. “I always knew it, but I was so proud of her.”
Public attention focused after the accident on the age of Filgueiras. FAA records show that she had a commercial pilot license and a Learjet 60 type rating, which means she needed to fly with a fully rated captain. The captain, Jeffery Gregory, 55, possessed an airline transport pilot license with the unrestricted Learjet 60 rating.
Corteleti told CNN Brasil that her daughter, as copilot, was not responsible for any actions. Stuart Grossman, the family’s lawyer, said they won’t be blaming anyone at this moment and will wait until the government’s investigations are done before giving their own version.
The plane, operated by Aurora Aviation (doing business as Upper Jets), departed Austin, Texas, at 10:37 a.m. and headed toward North Eleuthera in the Bahamas, NTSB reports. The crew reported light clear ice and moderate turbulence before entering an overspeed condition and crashing.
According to flight-tracking data, the jet lost about 27,000 feet of altitude in just one minute. It crashed around 12:50 p.m. near South Military Trail, between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said there seemed to be no casualties on the ground.
Most of the left elevator, which controls the plane’s pitch, was recovered in three pieces 1.3 to 3.8 miles from the main wreckage, Tom Chapman, a member of the NTSB, said.
It is not known at the moment whether the separation of the elevator played a role in the loss of control or was a consequence of forces acting on the airplane as it fell. The preliminary report will be issued thirty days after the crash, with the final one, identifying the probable cause, expected in twelve to twenty-four months.
Thomas Noetzel, the director of operations at Upper Jets, said the company will cooperate with authorities to provide an objective investigation into what happened.
Other casualties were Adam Robinson, 45, and Helen Sharp, 40, both of Texas, along with their children, Emma Robinson, 4, and Charles Robinson, 2; Ana Maria Ramirez Cetina, 24, the nanny; and family friends Rowan “Charmi” Fehr Toews, 38, and Rachel Reed, 38. The family was on holiday.
“You had the most beautiful, bubbly soul,” she wrote, “and your presence made every room you walked into a little brighter.”
