SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
West Palm Beach, Florida: The passengers and co-pilot of the Bahamas-bound private jet that nosedived into a South Florida neighbourhood have been identified, as investigators said parts of the aircraft appear to have broken off before the fatal crash.
The Learjet 60 jet began its journey at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. All nine people on board died, including multimillionaire tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife, Helen Sharp, and their children, four-year-old Emma and two-year-old Charlie, according to a statement from the families of the seven passengers.
Anita Maria Cetina, who helped care for the children, also died. Two more victims were identified as Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
“Our hearts are also with the families of the pilots, who are grieving alongside us,” the families of the seven said.
Robinson recently told the ProfitLed podcast that he and his family lived in Aspen, Colorado. He was a co-founder of Robly, an email marketing platform, and founder of Retention.com, which uses technology to connect e-commerce website visitors to their email addresses.
“I feel like I’m living the dream,” Robinson, 45, said. “I love the fact that I get to see my kids in the morning and the evening, and I don’t have to travel for work that much, and I get to live in this place that’s always been my dream,” he said. “And my wife is super happy because she can be a full-time artist.”
Camila Corteleti told The New York Post and The New York Times that her daughter, 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, was one of the pilots. She earned her pilot’s licence in 2023 while a 17-year-old senior at West Boca Raton Community High School in Florida, local news reports said at the time.
The Palm Beach County School District paid for her licence as part of the high school’s specialised 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.”
Her pilot’s licence showed she had the rating to fly that model of Learjet, but not to be in command of the flight. It’s understood she was the co-pilot. The pilot’s identity has not yet been released.
Her father, Allan Filgueiras, told the Associated Press he wasn’t prepared to speak about the crash.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office declined to discuss the death investigation, saying it was still in the early stages.
Video recorded by passersby captured the terrifying moment on Sunday afternoon as the aircraft plunged from the sky before slamming into the ground and exploding in Greenacres, about 11 kilometres south-west of West Palm Beach.
Flames flickered around chunks of pavement lining the crater as shocked residents looked on in horror. Thick black smoke engulfed the crash site.
“Debris was everywhere. Debris hit my house. Everything was on fire. The road was on fire,” Anthony Blackmon, who lives near the crash site, told NBC affiliate WTVJ. “I’ve always seen it on the news, never thought it would happen so close to somebody like how it happened today.”
National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said during a news conference on Monday (US time) that the aircraft appeared to break up prior to crashing.
“We do have some indication that the aircraft was breaking up before impact,” Chapman said. “We may find parts of the aircraft some distance away from the actual impact site.”
The plane was heading east at 35,000 feet when the pilots reported problems with turbulence and ice.
One pilot said ice was accumulating on the jet and that turbulence was jolting it by as much as 700 feet, according to air traffic control recordings captured by LiveATC.net. Rain pounded the region on Sunday.
“We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence,” the pilot told controllers.
However, the situation rapidly deteriorated. The pilot requested permission to climb another 2000 feet and then quickly declared an emergency as the jet lost altitude at an alarming rate.
“We’re descending 8000 [feet] – mayday, mayday – we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute,” she radioed. “We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute.”
Moments later, the pilot said: “We’re going to crash into the ground.”
Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel G. Flores said at the news conference he did not know when residents living near the crash site would be able to return home.
There were around 77 mobile homes in the area and residents of those homes were evacuated to a shelter, Flores said.
“Our concern right now is clearing the scene so that our residents can get back to normal,” Flores said.
“We don’t really have a timeline as to when they are going to be able to comb through all the evidence and do everything they need to do, and that leaves our community looking for answers.”
Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter asked for sympathy for the crash victims.
