West Boca Raton aviation academy let students practice on simulators and drones
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a 20-year-old woman with a pilot’s license, 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 was the copilot flying a Learjet from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas on Sunday, when the aircraft crashed and exploded near West Palm Beach with eight other people aboard. All nine people aboard were killed, according to the family.
Local news reports at the time said Filgueiras earned her pilot’s license in 2023, when she was a 17-year-old senior at West Boca Raton Community High School. She was 20 years old at the time of the crash.
Her pilot’s license showed she had the rating to fly the jet but not to be in command of the flight, a distinction consistent with the family’s identification of her as the copilot.
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.
In a 2023 interview with WPEC-TV, Filgueiras said, “Some people think that it’s weird that I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car,” adding, “I think it’s funny.”