An aircraft pilot in Florida, whose pictures have been posted online in connection with the crash of a jet plane Sunday in Palm Beach County, says she was at home during the incident and did not take part in the flight.
Alexandra Dudgeon was wrongfully named online as one of the nine people who died when a Learjet 60 bound for the Bahamas crashed onto a busy road in Greenacres. The picture of Dudgeon and her LinkedIn profile, which describes her as a Learjet 60 pilot, were posted together with dashcam video of the plane crash and audio of the pilot’s distress calls to air traffic controllers.
“To everyone reaching out and posting my linked in profile all over social media, I was not involved in the accident,” Dudgeon posted on LinkedIn the day of the crash. “Thank you for checking in.”
Her mother, Cara Mason, made a public post on Facebook on the same day.
“I am making a public post that my daughter Alexandra Dudgeon is alive and was not on the plane that went down today,” Mason posted. “Many social media platforms are showing pictures of her along with the voice recordings from today’s plane crash in South Florida. Alexandra (Allie Dudgeon) is alive.”
“She was scheduled off work today and was not on that flight,” Mason added. “Our prayers are with the families of those who were.”
On Monday, Dudgeon thanked people who stood up for her online.
“Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me yesterday and today about the photos of me and false information spread of my involvement in the crash yesterday,” she posted. “I do work for that company but am very thankful I was at home that day.”
“Thank you to my friends, family, and strangers who helped clarify in the comments the false information and stuck up for me,” Dudgeon posted. “Prayers to the families who were affected by this tragic event.”
The confusion came about because officials had not yet released the names of those onboard. For several hours after the plane crash, Dudgeon’s name appeared online in connection with the incident without official confirmation, and some websites even named her as the jet’s copilot.
Relatives later confirmed that the plane’s copilot was Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, a former West Boca Raton High School student who got her pilot’s license at 17, before she had a driver’s license.
Her mother, Camila Corteleti, and stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, told the New York Post that she was the copilot. Camila also said Filgueiras was the pilot whose calls were recorded and paired with Dudgeon’s picture.
Filgueiras worked for Upper Jets, a private charter company in Fort Lauderdale. Her mother said she had about 1,300 flight hours and had been flying commercially for about nine months.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, it is not clear whether Filgueiras was piloting the jet at the time of the crash. The other pilot has not been named publicly.
The recordings drew intense online criticism over how Filgueiras handled the emergency. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended her, saying the criticism of her distress calls is “most troubling.”
The Learjet 60 took off from Austin, Texas, on Sunday, bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. It crashed around 12:50 p.m. on South Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue North in Greenacres, a city with a population of about 45,000 people about 7 miles southwest of West Palm Beach.
Dashcam videos showed the jet diving nose-first into the road and exploding into a fireball, leaving a deep burning crater. The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, called the crash “cataclysmic” and said that the plane looked like a missile going down. The state’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, called it a “horrific tragedy.”
No one on the ground was killed. One man who was driving away from the scene sustained an injury to his leg. Officials evacuated about 600 residents of a nearby mobile home community and said the road might remain closed for at least 30 days.
The victims of the crash were identified as Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, their young children Emma and Charlie, Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina. Relatives said that this group consisted of the Robinson family, their caregiver, and another couple. According to Flight Safety Foundation data, it was the deadliest crash involving a Learjet 60.
The pilots were flying east at 35,000 feet when they reported turbulence, icing, and precipitation and requested to climb 2,000 feet, according to multiple reports. Thunderstorms were moving through the Palm Beach area at that time.
NTSB officials said Monday that the crew reported light clear ice and moderate turbulence shortly before the plane entered an overspeed condition and began descending quickly.
According to NTSB board member Tom Chapman, the maintenance records show the cockpit voice recorder was installed on the plane, but it is not yet clear whether the device is still onboard and can be recovered. The water in the crater makes the search more difficult.
About 20 NTSB investigators went to the crash site, working with the FAA and the jet’s manufacturer. The agency said it will release a preliminary report within 30 days.
