The female co-pilot on the Learjet 60 that crashed in Florida has been identified as Nathalia Gadelha, who obtained her private pilot’s license while still in high school.
The moment the private plane exploded into a fireball near Mr. Trump’s resort.
The female co-pilot on the Learjet 60 flight N722BD that crashed near a residential area in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, Florida (USA) on November 1st has been identified as Nathalia Gadelha, 20 years old.
She obtained her pilot’s license while still in high school.
Gadelha’s mother, Camila, and stepfather confirmed to The Post that she was the co-pilot on Learjet Flight 60, which departed from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas.
The plane plummeted to the ground at a speed of over 6,000 meters per minute.
Nathalia Gadelha (20 years old) has been identified as the co-pilot in the catastrophic plane crash in Florida.
Growing up in Palm Beach County, the young female pilot gained local media attention when she obtained her private pilot’s license at age 17 in October 2023, even before getting her driver’s license.
“I would say I’m quite fond of bragging about it.
When people say, ‘Oh, you don’t know how to drive,’ I’ll reply, ‘Yes, but I know how to fly a plane,’” Gadelha shared with CBS12 in an interview at the time.
Gadelha added that she started learning to fly in 2020.
Besides that, her father also taught her basic flying knowledge and skills.
He had learned to fly as a hobby in 2018.
Meanwhile, her mother frequently shares pictures of the family traveling together on their private plane on social media.
According to Gadelha, she began daily flight practice after completing her theory lessons, accumulating a total of 88 flight hours and pᴀssing her aviation knowledge test.
The Palm Beach County School District’s Aviation Academy sponsored her tuition for her pilot’s license after the training program was launched in 2023.
“I like doing things differently from everyone else.
So I think this is a really great experience, not just an opportunity.
I didn’t choose to follow the conventional path and this is the result. I think it’s great.
Some people find it strange that I know how to fly a plane but don’t have a driver’s license.
Actually, I can still drive, but many people find it quite funny.
I find it that way myself and now I really, really want to get a driver’s license,” Gadelha once shared.
Nathalia Gadelha obtained her private pilot’s license at the age of 17.
The female co-pilot who flies the Learjet 60 also hopes to become a pilot for a commercial airline in the future.
She attended and graduated from the American Flyers Aviation Academy, based in Addison, Texas.
In a recent social media post, Gadelha shared a video of herself and her boyfriend Justin taking a flight together.
“How many times do you see two pilots under 21 years old both holding commercial, multi-engine, instrumentation pilot certificates and CFI/CFI-I flight instructor/certified flight instructor/instrumentation instructor certificates?”, she wrote in the video caption.
At approximately 12:50 PM on November 1st (local time), a Learjet 60 private jet, registration number N722BD, carrying nine people, unexpectedly crashed into a residential area in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA, and exploded.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that all nine people on board perished.
According to aviation analysis site Fl360Aero, the possibility of the aircraft encountering a rapidly developing convective storm is becoming a key area of investigation in the accident.
Initial meteorological ᴀssessments also indicated the aircraft may have entered a strong convective zone in the final minutes.
Radar data, satellite imagery, temperature parameters, and cockpit communications also reported a potential for multiple simultaneous hazards, including heavy rain, freezing temperatures, and air turbulence.
Although the exact extent of the weather’s impact on the accident cannot yet be determined, the storm’s formation and development remain key factors that investigators need to focus on.
