A 20-year-old woman with a pilot’s licence was among nine people killed when a small jet crashed and exploded in South Florida, her family said.
Camila Corteleti told the New York Post and New York Times that her daughter, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, was the copilot flying a Learjet from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, Sunday when it crashed and exploded near West Palm Beach with eight other people aboard.
Filgueiras earned her licence in 2023 when she was a 17-year-old senior at West Boca Raton Community High School, according to local news reports at the time.
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Her pilot’s licence showed she had the rating to fly the jet but not to be in command of the flight.
The Palm Beach County School District paid for her license as part of the high school’s specialized aviation academy, in which students practice flying on simulators and drones.
“Some people think that it’s weird that I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car,” Filgueiras told WPEC-TV in 2023. “I think it’s funny.”
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