US3 min(s) read
Extended audio appears to reveal grim warning ATC gave Learjet pilots before deadly crash
In the week following a $2 million private jet crashing into a mobile home community in Florida, killing nine people, more and more information about the moments leading up to the fatal incident has emerged.
At around 1PM on Sunday, November 1, the Learjet 60 nose-dived into the ground, exploding with a huge fireball and creating a massive crater, just nine miles from President Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort.
A young family with two small children, their nanny, and two close friends were killed alongside the pilot and co-pilot.
While an investigation has been launched into the circumstances that led to the fatal crash, the alleged audio recording of the two pilots, Jeff Gregory, 55, and Nathalia Gadelha Filgueira, 20, communicating with air traffic control appears to reveal that they were advised to avoid the oncoming storm.
The crew ignored advice from air traffic control
In the clip, which has since gone viral, a call handler from the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center warned: "The turn to Freeport looks pretty bad; there is moderate to extreme precipitation."
However, the crew decided to ignore their colleague's advice, and things quickly took a terrifying turn when Filgueira reported ice forming on the aircraft.
She can be heard telling the traffic control center: "We have light clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence."
Seconds later, the young pilot asked the person on the other end of the call if they "have any better rides", meaning an alternative route that would allow them to swerve the storm.
The response then said: "The rides improve in my airspace, but you're kinda far out of it."
She requested permission to climb from 35,000 to 37,000 feet in an apparent bid to escape the freezing conditions, a maneuver that could have caused the aircraft to go hurtling to the earth.
The 20-year-old pilot had to say the words no aviator ever wants to
Things began going wrong in an instant, prompting the pilot to make a "mayday" report to the controller receiving the message.
In the chilling recording, the pilot said: “We’re descending 8,000 — mayday, mayday — we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute."
Without taking a breath, she then desperately added: “We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000 feet per minute.”
“We’re going to crash into the ground,” she added with a terrified scream.
As the crew predicted in their final moments, the private jet, which was flying from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas, smashed into the Greenacres mobile home community and killed all of its passengers and crew.
The seven other passengers killed when the plane crashed were: Austin-based tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 44, his wife Helen Sharp, their four-year-old daughter Emma, and their two-year-old son Charlie, nanny Anita Maria Apellido Cetina, and friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.