Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg
Audio recordings from before a Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County shows what was said before the collision that killed all nine people on board, according to local media.
The private plane was captained by 55-year-old Jeffrey Gregory and Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, who was the co-pilot, on Sunday, Nov. 1. The plane was flying from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas.
Shocking dashcam footage from vehicles in the area near the crash show the jet plunging from the sky onto a suburban street in Palm Beach County before exploding.
The seven others who were aboard the aircraft include:
- Adam Robinson, the 45-year-old father of two of the children on board.
- Helen Sharp, the mother of the children on board, 40.
- Emma Robinson, 4-year-old daughter of the couple.
- Charlie Robinson, 2-year-old son of the couple.
- Anita Maria Cetina, 24, nanny for the family.
- Rachel Reed, 38, a friend of the family.
- Rowan “Charmi” Fehr Toews, 38, a friend of the family.
The conversation between Filgueiras and officials at the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center lasted about two minutes, the newspaper reported. The aircraft had hit a thunderstorm and appeared to be flying smoothly before Filgueiras could be heard declaring “mayday” and then yelling that they were “descending 20,000 feet per minute.” Gregory could allegedly be heard reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the background, according to The Miami Herald.
Family members for those on board said at a recent news conference that they wished they could have been there “to help.” Filgueiras’ father, Allan Filgueiras, also a licensed private pilot, listened to the audio recording “many times.” Filgueiras obtained her pilot’s license at 17 years old as a senior high school student at West Boca Raton Community High School, CBS News reported.
WSVN reported it “was a love of aviation” that connected the two.
“She made me so proud,” the young pilot’s father told reporters. “She showed me what it is to be a hero.”
An official cause of the crash has not been publicly identified. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the crash.
Leesfield Shapiro extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who perished in this aviation tragedy. The NTSB has said that there are approximately 1,200 to 1,300 civil aviation accidents per year. This figure accounts for accidents in which an aircraft has sustained substantial damage, an aircraft accident that has resulted in injury, and fatal crashes involving small, private planes, instructional aircraft, helicopters, charter aircraft, and commercial airlines.
Leesfield Shapiro
Leesfield Shapiro is a personal injury law firm with five decades of experience representing the victims of accidents and their grieving families. Ira Leesfield, Leesfield Shapiros’ Founder and Managing Partner, along with Mark A. Sylvester, represented the family of a pilot after he and his mother were killed in a single-engine airplane crash. The lawsuit was filed against the plane manufacturer, a service facility and the FAA. In this case, FAA air traffic controllers failed to provide important weather information to the pilot, resulting in the crash amid a severe weather event.
The firm obtained a $2,800,000 settlement in that case.
The firm has represented countless others involved in aviation accidents who suffered tremendously as the result of either FAA and Air Traffic Controller error, defective aircraft design, mechanical failure, and/or pilot or employee error.
Leesfield Shapiro has decades of experience handling aviation cases, a practice area of personal injury law that requires specialized knowledge of aviation law and meticulous investigative skills. The firm has previously represented passengers, pilots and innocent bystanders injured or killed due to the negligence of corporations and individuals alike.
Previous Aviation Cases
The firm previously handled an aviation case in which a 30-year-old co-pilot was killed in a crash due to an issue with the plane’s controls that went unnoticed during pre-flight checks.
The firm secured a $10 million recovery for the co-pilot’s family.
In another aviation case, the firm obtained over $8.5 million for the family.
In a devastating aviation case that resulted in the death of our client’s loved one, Leesfield Shapiro secured $5.4 million.
In Mitchell/Harrigan v. Bell, the firm represented two National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees who were seriously injured in a helicopter crash. The pilot, Lt. William Harrigan, was a NOAA officer. He was attempting to land the rotorcraft because it had run out of gas.
The lawsuit for the defective and unsafe helicopter involved its manufacturer, the company that sold the rotorcraft, and the company that leased the helicopter to the government. The firm obtained a $1.9 million recovery for the men.
In another aviation case handled by Leesfield Shapiro, the firm obtained more than $1.8 million for an injured client.
