Family of four, two close friends and nanny also died in crash as pilot identified as 55-year-old Jeff Gregory
Nathalia Filgueiras, 20, was co-pilot of the private Learjet 60 en route from Austin-Bergstrom international airport in Texas to North Eleuthera airport in the Bahamas on Sunday when it suddenly plummeted out of the sky, killing all onboard, her mother told the New York Times.
Later on Monday, the family of the passengers who died posted a statement on Facebook identifying the victims and paying tribute to them.
It named them as Adam Robinson, 45, a Texas-based technology entrepreneur; his wife Helen Sharp, 40; and their children, Emma, four, and Charlie, two. The statement said close family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr were also killed, along with Anita Maria Cetina, the children’s nanny.
The pilot in charge of the Learjet was identified by TMZ and other media outlets on Monday as Jeff Gregory, 55, an experienced aviator from Pennsylvania.
Maybe they should be outlawed for environmental reasons, but private jets operated by professional service providers as in this case aren’t the “small planes” with the high crash rates. It’s the ones with piston engines and inexperienced owner-pilots that crash a lot.
Even those are roughly comparable to cars in terms of injury and death rates for a comparable trip. Driving is one of the most dangerous things the average person does, so that’s not exactly good, but it seems to be within most peoples’ risk tolerance.