The pilot heard screaming in terror as she crashed a private jet in Florida has been named as footage shows the horror smash. The woman 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. The private jet crashed into the ground in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday at 12.50 pm. Flying from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, it plummeted 25,00ft in just over a minute before slamming into a residential neighbourhood near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-largo estate.
In a chilling audio recorded in the cockpit only moments before the plane nosedived straight to the ground, Gadelha was heard shouting: “We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000ft per minute.
“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 grew up in Palm Beach County and got her private pilot’s licence at the age of 17 – before she earned her driver’s licence.
In 2023, she told CBS12 in an interview: “I definitely do brag because people say, ‘Oh, you can’t drive,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I can fly.'”
Gadelha started taking pilot lessons in 2020 but was also taught by her amateur flyer dad, the Daily Star reports. Her mother regularly shared posts about the family flying in private jets together.
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.
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.
