Learjet 60 crashes in Florida - Crashes 9 Miles from Mar-a-Lago

[AZ_HighCountry]

how big was the storm, maybe they did not have enough fuel to go around?

That could be.

Remember, this incident was yesterday. It will be awhile before even the preliminary report comes out.

 

[Mobius]

 

[Ali_Baba]

55-year-old Jeff Gregory was identified as the pilot of the 2-million-dollar Learjet 60. He is described as an experienced pilot from Pennsylvania.

The pilot was experienced.

 

[KAL-EL]

Absolutely horrible. I have such a sadness for these people even though I didn't know them.

May their souls find peace.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

@Mobius, for those who won't click the link in the Tweet:

Texas family of 4 among 9 killed in horrific Florida plane crash

A family of four from Texas were among the nine people who were killed when a plane crashed in Greenacres, Florida, on Sunday.

www.fox7austin.com

More lines given to the female pilot than the male.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

Doing some more research. Really hard to find any information about the pilot in charge due to the fascination with the copilot.

What I was able to find is the pilot had 10 years experience with East Coast Jets which is a private charter service. The Lear 60 is not part of their fleet. They do have a Lear 35A.

The avionics between the two are similar with the 60 being upgraded. So a pilot should be able to transition from one to the other quite easily.

 

[j_hungary]

The answer is obvious:

A young, attractive female who earned her wings before obtaining her driver's license. She's certainly not the first and won't be the last. But, she's a bit of a celebrity so hence the focus.

I wasn't talking about the profile, that was done 3 years ago....

I was talking about why people focus on her in this, enough to dig up 3 years old video....we know almost nothing on the other pilot, which I am pretty sure is a male..

 

[j_hungary]

If this amount of information radars is out there why was that jet allowed to fly? I heard said these thunderstorms are very fast developing, so possibly they found themselves in severe conditions even though thought they were circumventing the storm cell …

Aircraft radar doesn't show much; most pilots depend on ATC forecasts, and they may see different things than the pilot.

A lot of things could be an issue here: they may not see the storm cloud, they may think they can fly over it (they do request FL370, which is normal for a private jet to go above the storm cloud), or they may simply underestimate the storm cloud.

We will know once the investigation is complete.

 

[j_hungary]

She was no rookie behind the stick:

View attachment 221875

It really depends; I don't want to rain on her or speak ill of the dead. But I had 2700 hours, and only about 50 of those are on Jet (I did that to get the Jet rating, then kept flying prop GA)

She might have 1300 hours on a different type. It's a lot different between being behind the stick of a Cessna 172 or a Learjet......and most people rack up a lot og GA or Prop flight when they do CPL.

But then she wasn;t flying, which mean it's not much of a point

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

It really depends; I don't want to rain on her or speak ill of the dead. But I had 2700 hours, and only about 50 of those are on Jet (I did that to get the Jet rating, then kept flying prop GA)

She might have 1300 hours on a different type. It's a lot different between being behind the stick of a Cessna 172 or a Learjet......and most people rack up a lot og GA or Prop flight when they do CPL.

But then she wasn;t flying, which mean it's not much of a point

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

I wasn't talking about the profile, that was done 3 years ago....

I was talking about why people focus on her in this, enough to dig up 3 years old video....we know almost nothing on the other pilot, which I am pretty sure is a male..

The pilot in command was 55. Name is Jeff Gregory. Prior to this flight he had 10 years' experience flying for East Coast Jets; a private air charter service based in Allentown, PA.

The Lear 60 is not part of their fleet. The 35A is. There is quite a bit of similarity between the two craft with the 60 of course having upgraded avionics.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

I wasn't talking about the profile, that was done 3 years ago....

I was talking about why people focus on her in this, enough to dig up 3 years old video....we know almost nothing on the other pilot, which I am pretty sure is a male..

I already answered your question. She is a young, attractive female who was a bit of a celebrity having obtained her pilots license before she had her driver's license.

 

[j_hungary]

View attachment 221903

Well, I considered myself a novice pilot even with over 2700 hours of flight time (Over 1500 on a PA-18) because most of my time I was flying with my Brother which is a former fighter pilot and airline pilot; he does most of the work. And you cannot compare the time spent on a VFR GA flight to an IFR Revenue flight.

I am not saying she is, or whether or not that matters in this case, but just looking at general hours is really misleading unless you know the breakdown of that in rating and endorsement, because most GA flights are basically you just pay for hours....

 

[RescueRanger]

Anyone else care to post callous comments?

If yes, it will not end well.

Mind boggling with some people here. Simply mind boggling.

Just ban them. Two mods and an admin have made clear we will not allow trash talking.

They have only themselves to blame.

 

[Watandar]

Jet That Crashed in Florida Carried Texas Family and Friends on Vacation​

Nine people died, including two young children and a 20-year-old co-pilot, Nathalia Filgueiras, who received her pilot’s license three years ago, when she was still a teenager.

Among the nine people aboard a private jet that plummeted to the ground on Sunday afternoon in Florida were a 20-year-old co-pilot and a Texas family that included two young children.

Everyone on the Bahamas-bound flight, which also carried a nanny to the children and two more friends of the family, died when the Learjet 60 crashed in a residential area of Palm Beach County, Fla., leaving a smoldering crater and wreckage in the street.

The pilot was Jeff Gregory, an aviator with years of experience, according to April Honnen, his former employer. His co-pilot was Nathalia Filgueiras.

Ms. Filgueiras, of Boca Raton, Fla., had logged more than 1,300 hours of flight time and received her pilot’s license at 17, according to her mother, Camila Corteleti. She said her daughter had worked for Upper Jets, a private charter firm based in Fort Lauderdale, and was co-pilot of Sunday’s flight.

Ms. Corteleti said her daughter had been passionate about flying since childhood, a love forged soaring the skies with her father, who is a recreational pilot. She recalled that her daughter, as a child, used to enjoy going to the Boca Raton Airport to watch planes taking off and landing, and that she announced when she was about 12 that she wanted to be a pilot.

“She loved the freedom,” Ms. Corteleti said. “It was completely different seeing the world from the top.”

Image

Nathalia Filgueiras had logged more than 1,300 hours of flight time and received her pilot’s license at 17, according to her mother.
According to a joint statement on Monday by the families of the people on board, the plane’s passengers included Adam Robinson, Helen Sharp and their two children, Emma and Charlie. The family lived in Austin, in a neighborhood of bungalows and live oaks west of downtown. Mr. Robinson was the founder and chief executive of several technology companies. Ms. Sharp worked in public relations and had recently opened a ceramics studio.

“They were exceptional people,” said Kevin Sims, who sold a home to the family in 2019 and saw them trick-or-treating on Halloween. “They were young, dynamic, kind, generous, warm.”

With them on the plane were Anita Maria Cetina, a nanny who “cared for Emma and Charlie with tenderness and devotion,” the family statement said, and another couple, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, who were “full of joy and adventure.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading an investigation into the crash, with assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Upper Jets, the private charter firm, is cooperating with the authorities “to ensure an objective understanding of what occurred,” Thomas Noetzel, director of operations, said in a statement on Monday.

“We are committed to supporting the families of all those who lost a loved one yesterday, and are praying for them as we grieve together,” he added.

Thomas B. Chapman, a member of the N.T.S.B. , told reporters at a Monday afternoon news conference in Florida that investigators had not yet recovered a cockpit voice recorder, and that they could not yet say whether one was on the plane.

The agency has just begun documenting the crash scene, which will take several days, said Timothy W. Monville, an investigator with the board. “The biggest obstacle that we’re going to have is recovering the major wreckage from the impacted crater on the roadway,” he said.

In the moments before the plane crashed, Ms. Filgueiras radioed air traffic controllers. She said that the plane was facing rain and “light, clear ice that is manageable, and moderate turbulence,” according to archived communications with air traffic controllers in Miami.

She asked whether the plane could climb to 37,000 feet, but, soon after, she desperately declared mayday, a life-threatening emergency. Ms. Filgueiras screamed into the radio that the plane was descending at a rate of 20,000 feet per minute. “We’re going to crash into the ground,” she said.

Robert Joslin, an aviation expert and associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said in an interview that a two-person cockpit typically has a pilot flying and a pilot monitoring, or P.F. and P.M. — positions commonly described as pilot and co-pilot.

It is not uncommon for young aviators to serve as pilot monitors on small jets, he said, so that they can log flight hours and move onto bigger aircraft.

Given that Ms. Filgueiras was handling radio communications, she was almost certainly the pilot monitoring, Dr. Joslin said. Her work probably involved not only communications but also keeping a close eye on the cockpit’s many instruments and gauges, while the pilot flying would have had more physical control over the aircraft.

Jared Isaacman, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, wrote on social media on Monday that it was too early to speculate on what might have gone wrong.

Mr. Isaacman said that Ms. Filgueiras “was doing her job, communicating with A.T.C. right to the end in a terrifying situation.”

“She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die,” he said.