A Learjet 60 plummeted from FL37.0 and crashed near vertical in a residential area in Florida. Stills from a dashcam appear to show the horizontal stabilizers missing. The pilot reported moderate turbulence and precipitation before immediately declaring an emergency.

I saw this on FB so I cannot vouch for the authenticity but it could explain what happened.

PSA, don’t listen to the ATC audio. It’s horrible to listen to.

Dashcam shows moment of Florida plane impact

At about 6 seconds and it was certainly hauling ass, but it appears to me that the horizontal stabilizer was missing

wow. that'll stay with you for a minute.

The co-pilot has been identified by her family as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, who began flying lessons at just 14. By 17, she had earned her private pilot’s license while attending West Boca Raton High School. Per her family, she was so proud to earn her wings before getting her driver’s license. Her love of aviation started young, and she was determined to turn that passion into a career flying commercial airliners.

Rest in peace.

Some on enhanced the dash cam still.

I don't trust that picture immediately because I can see the left wing simply from the paused video.

Would she need an SIC type flying international to the Bahamas?

Video by Co-Pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras posted to her TikTok, 9/2/26, 1 month before her final flight in the jet that crashed near West Palm Beach, FL, 11/1/26.

Interesting how much focus is on her specifically (implication is she’s young and a woman, therefore causal). We’ll see what the NTSB comes up with, but my money is it has little to nothing to do with her (maybe a comment on CRM breakdown in the ADM process leading up to the event?)

Either way, sad all around. Don’t fly through T-storms guys (and here’s proof it can happen to anyone at all experience levels - the why will be the interesting part of the investigation).

2 hours ago, brabus said:

Interesting how much focus is on her specifically (implication is she’s young and a woman, therefore causal). We’ll see what the NTSB comes up with, but my money is it has little to nothing to do with her (maybe a comment on CRM breakdown in the ADM process leading up to the event?)

The normal social media outlets do seem to be going off on this aspect. More than one thread on Reddit began with a pinned admonishment from the mods about not disparaging the co-pilot, or in any way questioning her credentials.

Several concerning aspects though. Taken individually are not a big deal, but taken in their entirely they paint a concerning picture:

• Avidly posting videos of her flying on social media.

• Flight training funded through some sort of government program, which generally have an element of gender bias.

• Potential gender preference in her hiring

The social justice warriors have pushed DEI so hard for so long. I don't agree with it, but I don't make the rules. At the same time, you can't push those kinds of things so hard, for so long, and not expect people to ask these kinds of questions.

Edited yesterday at 06:21 PM1 day by Blue

23 minutes ago, Blue said:

The normal social media outlets do seem to be going off on this aspect. More than one thread on Reddit began with a pinned admonishment from the mods about not disparaging the co-pilot, or in any way questioning her credentials.

Several concerning aspects though. Taken individually are not a big deal, but taken in their entirely they paint a concerning picture:

• Avidly posting videos of her flying on social media.

• Flight training funded through some sort of government program, which generally have an element of gender bias.

• Potential gender preference in her hiring

The social justice warriors have pushed DEI so hard for so long. I don't agree with it, but I don't make the rules. At the same time, you can't push those kinds of things so hard, for so long, and not expect people to ask these kinds of questions.

Now do one on the PIC, the guy in charge.

Apparently, she had a Lear type rating (Filgueiras is her actual last name so it took a minute to check the FAA website) which I don't see many 20 Y/Os able to fund themselves and there are a lot of more qualified pilots out their stuck as CFIs who would kill for a L-60 SIC job like this.

On top of this the real regulators of aviation are insurance companies which I'm more than a little surprised she could get insured under most circumstances.

Now to Brabus' point none of this at this point appears causal.

@Blue I agree DEI is an absolute disaster and should be fully eradicated. However in this case, her being a DEI hire (maybe) is not going to be causal. Could be if this was single pilot, but it wasn’t. The 55 yr old dude with an ATP was PIC and ultimately owns all decisions/actions.

This accident has a similar vibe to the Amazon crash - why have two experienced, ATP-rated pilots made egregiously “rookie” mistakes, at least apparently at initial glance. I don't think there’s any way in either of these accidents that it doesn’t come fully to the PIC (and contributing by the SIC). I’m generally in the camp of let the investigation play out, and I still am…but also some things are so obvious one can’t not acknowledge it.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by brabus

So far the only thing that I can see affected by her age would be how extraordinarily difficult it would be for a 20-year-old FO to tell a 55-year-old PIC that he's a moron for trying to climb over or through/close to a thunderstorm.

Hell, I'm 41, experienced, and largely unsocialized, and even still sometimes I have the internal debate over telling the dipshit in the left seat that 20 miles from any thunderstorm is the rule, not a suggestion. Some of these guys act like they are charged a fee for every degree to the left or right that they deviate. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to just say nothing.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by Lord Ratner

I'm usually not surprised by much these days. The instant, over the top reactions by much of the bozosphere on this accident actually did surprise me a bit. From the left it must've been a Trump sponsored shootdown to the right this had to be DEI related, was honestly just disappointing.

5 minutes ago, DirkDiggler said:

I'm usually not surprised by much these days. The instant, over the top reactions by much of the bozosphere on this accident actually did surprise me a bit. From the left it must've been a Trump sponsored shootdown to the right this had to be DEI related, was honestly just disappointing.

In the 90s and earlier, it took actual effort to make your craziness known. Printing newsletters and shit and sending them out all the time. Now days, you need a tablet/phone/computer and the world can instantly hear your opinion. Oh and its monetized, the more crazy your take/headeline, the more clicks.

i'm curious to what their radar tilt was...seems like they weren't painting it.

Stolen from social media...

The NTSB held its second and final on scene media briefing regarding N722BD this afternoon. The agency says it recovered the aircraft’s left elevator in three pieces between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the crash site. Most likely, it broke off at FL150-250 due to stress from the overspeed dive. ie, damaged during the dive, not damage that caused the dive.

The following is from a pilot who flew the Lear 60 for over 15 years.

"“We always fly in ridiculous cold temperatures.”

“Usually you get the bad ice when the temperatures are like 0 to negative 20. Believe it or not, there's a point where it gets too cold for ice. At negative 40, you pretty much can't get ice. Besides that, the airplane is equipped with hot wings and hot tail.”

“I flew the Lear 60 for like 15 years. It's a no joke airplane and probably the most dangerous airplane I've ever flown. It has a super critical wing. The airflow has to be perfect. When it gets into rough air and turbulence, it will easily stall. It has stalled on me at 41,000 feet just because we got into some turbulence. (On the way to Palm Beach as a matter of fact. ) we recovered and got her flying again around 30,000 ft. Scary

But here's the problem. This airplane has a terrible coffin corner. (At high altitudes) what that means is, you fly in a really narrow window where if you lose 20 knots, it stalls. And if you gain 20 knots, it goes into overspeed. The air goes supersonic over the wing and it goes into a high speed stall, or worse, a Mach tuck.

So if you stall, the normal recovery is to push the yoke forward to lower the nose and gain air speed again. At low altitude, you can push really hard and recover quickly. But in the 60... if you push hard, it will gain air speed and go into a high speed stall, it doesn't take much. It's very sensitive. The 60 has super short wings that don't make much lift. So then you high speed stall, and the computer is yelling at you... OVERSPEED! So then you pull back and enter a low speed stall. And you go back and forth trying to keep it in the air speed window.

This whole thing is pretty scary. And you should recover basically by using your finger tips using super small corrections. You can't over do it. If you try to muscle the recovery, she gets mad and will become unrecoverable. If she enters a mach tuck. You're done.”

“I taught the Lear 60 to other pilots and mentored them. I told them... this airplane has a soul and it's trying to kill you. Do not ever try to top the weather. Don't go over a thunderstorm. Go around it. If it means a half hour longer, then do it. Going over the thunderstorm will go into turbulence that you might not recover from.

These pilots went right over a thunderstorm. I think it stalled which caused them to drop down into the thunderstorm and ended up in mach tuck. They picked up so much speed that it ripped off the horizontal stabilizer. At that point... chuck Yeager can't fix it.

These same pilots did something similar a couple months ago. ATC got mad at them. They poked the bear one too many times.

This is not a beginner airplane."

So much written in blood. Not saying it happened here but telling a High Net Worth individual or another pilot no this is or would be a bad idea is a little easier if you can point to a tragedy like this. It's no longer a hypothetical.