Palm Beach Plane Crash Co-Pilot Was Just 20 Years Old
By TMZ STAFF
The co-pilot who died in a horrific private jet crash in Florida has been identified as a 20-year-old woman who earned her pilot’s license before graduating high school.
Nathalia Gadelha was identified by her mother and stepfather as one of the nine people who died when a Learjet 60 plummeted from the sky Sunday and burst into flames in Palm Beach County, according to the New York Post.
Nathalia was just 17 when she earned her private pilot’s license while attending West Boca Raton High School … having started flight lessons in 2020 and learning from her father.
Her training was funded through her school district’s Aviation Academy … and she went on to graduate from American Flyers flight school while pursuing her dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot.
In a 2023 interview, Nathalia revealed she’d already logged 88 hours in the air … and later shared that she and her boyfriend had earned multiple aviation qualifications before turning 21.
As for the deadly crash … the jet was traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas when it suddenly went into a terrifying nosedive, with flight data showing it was dropping more than 20,000 feet per minute.
The plane slammed into the ground near a mobile home park, erupting into a massive fireball and killing all nine people aboard.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating what caused the crash.
