Just ten minutes before the Learjet 60 slammed into a Palm Beach County roadway, 20-year-old first officer Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras texted her boyfriend the simple message “I’ve got turbulence, I’ve got ice.” The aircraft, registration N722BD, had left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas when it encountered severe weather. By 12:50 p.m. on November 1, 2026, it had entered a near-vertical dive and struck near Military Trail in the Greenacres area, 𝘬iᩚlling all nine people on board and leaving a deep crater.

Filgueiras had become a local aviation prodigy years earlier. She earned her private pilot certificate at age 17 while still a senior at West Boca Raton Community High School, months before she obtained a driver’s license. She began flying lessons in 2020 after accompanying her father in his Beechcraft Bonanza and later trained at American Flyers. By the time of the accident she held commercial, multi-engine, instrument, and instructor ratings, had logged roughly 1,300 hours, and had been flying commercially for about nine months. Her mother, Camila, later said she had always feared aviation would one day take her daughter away, yet she remained proud that Nathalia was living her dream.

In the final moments the situation deteriorated rapidly. While cruising near 35,000 feet the crew reported light clear ice they considered manageable and moderate turbulence. After receiving clearance to climb, Filgueiras declared a mayday as the jet entered an overspeed condition and began descending at rates that quickly exceeded 20,000 feet per minute. Her final transmission, roughly 35 seconds after the mayday call, was the short phrase “We’re out of time.” Flight-tracking data later showed the aircraft had lost more than 27,000 feet in about one minute.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators subsequently recovered most of the left elevator in three pieces scattered between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the impact site, confirming that structural separation occurred before the jet struck the ground. Whether the separation caused the loss of control or resulted from the extreme forces of the dive remains under investigation, with weather a central focus. Filgueiras would have turned 21 in January. One person on the ground was injured, and hundreds of nearby residents were displaced.