“I KNEW A PLANE WOULD TAKE HER FROM ME”: MOTHER’S HEARTBREAKING WORDS AFTER 20-YEAR-OLD PILOT diᩚєs IN FLORIDA 𝔠r𝘢sh

Camila Corteleti said she was always afraid her daughter’s passion for flying could one day take her life. But she was also incredibly proud that Nathalia had achieved the dream she had pursued since childhood.

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA — A mother is grieving the loss of her 20-year-old daughter, a young commercial pilot whose life was cut short when a private jet crashed in Florida, 𝘬iᩚlling all nine people aboard.

Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was serving as co-pilot aboard a Learjet 60 that went down in Palm Beach County on Sunday, November 1, 2026.

In the days following the tᩚraɢedy, her mother, Camila Corteleti, shared the painful emotions she had carried for years: pride in her daughter’s accomplishments, mixed with a persistent fear that aviation might one day take her away.

“I knew a plane would take her from me. I always knew,” Camila said, according to the family’s account shared with the New York Post.

Despite that fear, she said she was immensely proud of Nathalia and knew her daughter had been living the dream she had worked so hard to achieve.

A DREAM THAT BEGAN IN CHILDHOOD

For Nathalia, flying was never simply a career choice. It was a passion that began when she was young.

According to her mother, Nathalia had already decided she wanted to become a pilot when she was just 12 years old. Her father was a recreational pilot, and she grew up fascinated by airplanes, often watching them take off and land.

She pursued that ambition with remarkable determination.

At just 17, Nathalia earned her pilot’s license — before she even obtained her driver’s license. She later attended flight school, worked as a flight instructor and eventually began building her career as a commercial pilot.

Her family said she had accumulated approximately 1,300 flight hours and had been working as a commercial pilot for around nine months.

“She loved the freedom,” her mother told PEOPLE. “It was completely different seeing the world from the top.”

For a young woman who had spent years working toward the cockpit, flying represented independence, possibility and the future she had imagined for herself.

HER FINAL MESSAGE CAME MINUTES BEFORE THE 𝔠r𝘢sh

In the moments before the tᩚraɢedy, Nathalia was reportedly still communicating with people close to her.

Her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, 44, told the New York Post that she had sent a message to her boyfriend shortly before the aircraft went down.

“She sent him a message, I think at 12:40 p.m., and the accident happened at 12:50 p.m.,” he recalled.

According to Corteleti, her message mentioned the difficult conditions the aircraft was experiencing.

“She just said: ‘I have turbulence, I have ice.’”

The Learjet had departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas.

At approximately 12:50 p.m. local time on November 1, the aircraft crashed in a residential area of Palm Beach County.

All nine people aboard — two crew members and seven passengers — died.

THE FINAL RADIO CALLS

Audio recordings of communications between the aircraft and air traffic controllers have revealed the increasingly desperate situation facing the flight crew.

The crew reported ice accumulating on the aircraft and moderate turbulence. The plane was reportedly experiencing significant movement, with turbulence causing altitude changes of hundreds of feet.

As the situation deteriorated, the pilots declared an emergency.

In the recorded transmissions, the crew reported a rapid descent, including a warning that the aircraft was descending at an extraordinary rate.

“We’re descending 8,000 — mayday, mayday — we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute,” one transmission stated.

Another communication described the aircraft as descending at an even greater rate.

“We’re going to 𝔠r𝘢sh into the ground,” the crew said in the recording.

The final words captured in the audio were reported by PEOPLE as “we’re out of 10,” an aviation expression referring to descending through 10,000 feet.

The recordings have offered a chilling account of the crew’s final efforts to communicate with air traffic control. However, investigators have not yet established the cause of the 𝔠r𝘢sh.

A FAMILY LEFT WITH PRIDE AND UNIMAGINABLE GRIEF

Nathalia’s dєatᩚh has left her family struggling to accept that someone so young, with so much ahead of her, is gone.

She had spent years preparing for a future in aviation. She had earned her qualifications, gained experience and taken the first steps toward the career she had dreamed about since childhood.

For her mother, that achievement remains a source of pride, even as the loss brings a pain that words cannot fully express.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the 𝔠r𝘢sh. Investigators are examining the aircraft, its flight data and the circumstances surrounding the reported icing, turbulence and sudden descent.

No final determination about what caused the aircraft to 𝔠r𝘢sh has been announced.

Nathalia was only 20.

She had already reached a milestone many people spend a lifetime pursuing, yet her story ended before she could discover how far that dream might have taken her.

Her family will remember the young woman who loved flying, worked tirelessly toward her ambitions and was proud to see the world from above.

And her mother’s words remain a heartbreaking reminder of the fear that sometimes accompanies a loved one’s dream — and the pride that can exist alongside unimaginable loss.