By FMNN Staff | PALM BEACH COUNTY | Nov. 3, 2026
As Learjet N722BD dove out of a storm over Palm Beach County on Sunday, one voice kept doing the job. Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, the jet's second-in-command, declared the mayday, called out the overspeed and the 60-degree bank, and shouted at the captain to "look outside." A male voice, reportedly 55-year-old Captain Jeff Gregory, could be heard reciting the Lord's Prayer. Within hours, strangers online had decided the crash was her fault.
The last minute
At about 12:47 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, the crew reported "light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence" at 35,000 feet, according to NTSB board member Tom Chapman. Less than 30 seconds later, a transmission from the jet announced a descent, followed by a mayday.
The air traffic control audio, recorded on the Miami Center frequency and posted by LiveATC, carries a female voice that her family says is Filgueiras. In roughly the final minute, that voice:
reports the crew is picking up precipitation and asks to climb to 37,000 feet;
declares "Mayday, mayday" and an emergency;
reports, "We are in an overspeed condition. Descending 20,000 feet per minute";
warns, "We're going to crash into the ground";
reports, "We are descending 22,000 feet, and we are banking 60 degrees";
shouts, "Look outside… Look outside," then, "We're out of time."
A controller answers, "I'm here with you. Talk to me." Then the frequency goes silent.
In the same final seconds, the New York Post reported, a male voice "appeared to be saying, 'Who art in heaven, hallowed be the name,'" the opening of the Lord's Prayer. Several outlets have attributed that voice to Gregory. Officials have not identified either voice.
She was screaming at times. She was also doing the job. Every call she made was what a second-in-command is trained to give in an emergency: what is happening, how fast, and what to do. She kept talking to the controllers until there was nothing left to say.
Who was aboard
The jet, operated by Aurora Aviation (doing business as Upper Jet), left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at about 10:37 a.m. Central time for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. It struck the ground near Military Trail in the Cresthaven/Greenacres area at about 12:50 p.m. Eastern. All nine people aboard died. A motorist was injured, and about 600 residents of a nearby mobile home community were displaced.
Captain Jeff Gregory, 55, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, was pilot-in-command. He was married with three children and began flight training in the 1990s.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, raised in Boca Raton by a Brazilian family, was second-in-command. She earned her private pilot certificate at 17 through the Palm Beach County school district's aviation academy, became a flight instructor at 19, and had been flying commercially for about nine months, her family said. Her stepfather said she had about 1,300 flight hours.
Passengers: tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson; his wife, Helen Sharp, 40; their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; their caregiver, Anita Maria Cetina; and family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
What investigators say
The NTSB has not determined a cause and says it will not speculate. Chapman said there is "some indication that the aircraft was breaking up before impact," and that weather is a major focus of the investigation. Flight-tracking data shows the jet fell about 27,000 feet in roughly a minute. AP reported that radar overlays appear to show the jet entering a rapidly building storm cell.
Maintenance records indicate the jet had a cockpit voice recorder, but investigators don't yet know whether it survived. A preliminary report is expected in about 30 days. Investigators have not said who was at the controls during the dive.
The pile-on
The audio went viral Sunday night. By Monday, Filgueiras's age, her high school TV interview, her selfies and her TikTok had become evidence in an online trial.
On X, user Eric Spracklen, quote-posting the New York Post story, wrote that she "ran a girl boss TikTok page" and that "this entire tragedy was so avoidable." The post drew roughly 831,000 views. Another account, @AI_EmeraldApple, blamed her nails and called her "too cocky for her own good," claiming "overconfidence and complacency killed 9 people."
Other posts attacked her age, mocked her screaming on the frequency, or suggested she got the job because of DEI. Before her family confirmed her identity, other Florida women pilots were wrongly named online as the co-pilot and had to post that they were alive.
None of those critics had seen the wreckage, the maintenance records or the weather data. Neither has anyone else outside the investigation.
Pushback, including from the administration
The sharpest rebuke came from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, a Trump appointee and a pilot with about 8,000 hours in similar jets. Writing on X in his personal capacity, he called out commentary "from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman's final radio calls."
"She was the second-in-command," Isaacman wrote, "and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die."
Her family
"She was a very good girl, responsible, hardworking," her mother, Camila Gadelha Corteleti, told CNN Brasil. "She was the co-pilot and couldn't make any decisions."
Her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, told the New York Post she texted her boyfriend about 10 minutes before the crash: "I've got turbulence, I've got ice." Her sister has said Nathalia "fought until the last moment she could."
Gregory's family has asked people to pray for his wife, Cheryl, and their three children. FMNN found no statement from them on the online blame.
What we don't know
Who was flying the jet during the dive.
Whether the "look outside" call names the captain; it has been heard as both "Jeff" and "Jack."
Whether the cockpit voice recorder survived, and what it captured.
What caused the jet to break up.
What we do know: a 20-year-old second-in-command worked the emergency, on the radio, until the last second. She deserved better than what came after.
Sources
Featured image: a Learjet 60 file photo (not the crash aircraft). Lars Henseleit, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.