The father of the 20-year-old co-pilot’s father of the unfortunate plane which crashed in Florida has broken his silence for the first time since tragedy and defended his daughter’s qualifications after online critics questioned if she had enough experience to fly the aircraft.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras’s father Allan Filgueiras said that he had been repeatedly listening to his daughter’s radio calls from the flight, trying to understand what went wrong before the plane crashed.
During a new conference on Friday, November 6, the grieving father said his daughter didn’t panic and continued reporting emergencies to air traffic controllers as the plane plunged towards the ground.
He said: “She showed me what it is to be a hero.”
The Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County on November 1 and all the nine people aboard the plane were killed. Nathalia was the co-pilot alongside 55-year-old Jeff Gregory.
The young co-pilot’s age became a topic of criticism online after the accident with some netizens questioning if she had enough experience to operate a high-performance business jet.
Her family has defended her qualifications, stating that she had logged more than 1,300 flight hours and completed extensive training to obtain her commercial pilot’s license and Learjet certification.
The family’s lawyer Stuart Grossman said the new conference was held to protect her reputation, adding that she was fully qualified for the position.
Nathania had reported ice building up on the aircraft during a thunderstorm before warning that it was descending at 20,000 feet per minute.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has launched an investigation into the accident and hasn’t yet determined the cause of the crash.
Investigators have recovered pieces of the aircraft’s tail miles from the crash site, while its cockpit voice recorder remains missing.
