The man who taught the 20-year-old co-pilot who was killed in Sunday’s Learjet crash has paid tribute to her as someone who was “born to fly”.
Instructor Chris Kirk said on Facebook that Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was the “most naturally gifted pilot I have ever taught, and I have been teaching for 40 years”.
“That young lady was born to fly! There was not a check ride that the examiner was not blown away!”
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The New York Post reported that Filgueiras, one of nine people killed after the private jet plunged from more than 35,000 feet into a Palm Beach street on Sunday, received her pilot’s licence as a high school student while she was still yet to learn how to drive a car.
The Post reported that Nathalia received pilot-in-command training, which qualifies pilots to act as the captain or sole pilot of a specific aircraft type.
Filgueiras was last heard making a tragic mayday call on Sunday in the Learjet’s final seconds before it hit the ground.
Kirk described Filgueiras as one of the rare students who were truly passionate about flying, as opposed to the majority who wanted to simply become airline pilots.
“When she did her Lear type rating, she had less than 1100 hours and she absolutely aced the PIC type rating and the examiner thought she had about 5000 hours!” he wrote in his post.
Nathalia Gadelha, 20, reportedly got her pilot’s licence while still at high school. Credit: supplied/threads/itsnatfilg
“I am saddened, because so many of the pilots in training today never wanted to become pilots and only want to become airline pilots! As I did check rides, I saw this time and time again! They had no passion for flying.They only wanted to get to the airlines to make the big money…“Nathalia was PASSIONATE about flying!!!”
On Wednesday, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the identities of the nine people, adding that the collection of human remains at the site was ongoing, CBS12 wrote.
The FBI, the violent crime division and crime scene unit from the sheriff’s office, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office, and forensic scientists worked together to identify the victims.
Investigators revealed that they found part of the tail of the doomed jet more than two kilometres from where it slammed into the ground and burst into flames on November 1.
National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said during a news conference on Tuesday that the discovery of tail parts confirmed the plane, which left Texas for the Bahamas hours earlier, was breaking apart before it hit the ground.
Chapman said the tail’s elevator was broken into three parts, and without that intact, the pilot would not have been able to pull the Learjet out of its nose dive.
“The function of the elevator is to control the pitch up and down,” he said on Monday.
“At those speeds I don’t know that it would’ve been effective even if it had still been attached to the aircraft, but knowing that it was lost is a very important piece of evidence in terms of pointing us towards other things to investigate.”
