Weather 
A longtime friend of the co-pilot who died in a Florida plane crash on Sunday said air traffic control audio revealing her final moments “was definitely, probably the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
The co-pilot, 20-year-old Nathalia Filgueiras, can be heard saying in the audio recordings that the jet she was flying alongside 55-year-old captain Jeffrey Gregory was rapidly descending.
“722 Bravo Delta, we’re descending 8000 Mayday, Mayday, we’re descending 10,000 ft per minute,” Filgueiras said.
The messages grew increasingly alarming before the Learjet 60, which was traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, ultimately crashed in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people on board.
“Declare an emergency 722 Bravo Delta, we are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute,” Filgueiras said.
Mikaela Schluth, who knew Filgueiras since middle school, said she is proud of how her friend handled it, “and how she was able to stay calm and give information, up until the last minute.”
Among the big questions now facing investigators is whether the pilots had a clear understanding of a storm they were approaching, and whether the plane’s horizontal stabilizer broke off, which would make the plane virtually uncontrollable. Weather data shows the aircraft entered a rapidly intensifying thunderstorm cell shortly before the pilots reported icing and significant turbulence.
“The two scenarios in my mind, they’re both atmospherically related,” said Robert Sumwalt, a former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and a CBS News transportation safety expert. “One is icing, the other is thunderstorms and turbulence associated with the thunderstorm.”
Typically, the Learjet 60 would have weather radar, similar to airliners. Pilots also generally try to avoid thunderstorms and the turbulence associated with them.
A priority for NTSB investigators is recovering the plane’s cockpit voice recorder, hoping its contents will help them better understand what occurred leading up to the crash.
“The biggest obstacle that we’re going to have is recovering the major wreckage from the impacted crater on the roadway,” Timothy Monville, the NTSB investigator in charge, said about the crash site.
Sumwalt said he is very confident investigators will determine what caused the crash and come up with recommendations to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
The passengers have been identified as Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, a couple from Austin, and their two young children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr and Anita Maria Cetina.
In a joint statement, their families wrote that “Adam and Helen were devoted parents,” and that “Charmi and [Rachel] were full of joy and adventure.” And Anita Maria “showed us a legacy of unconditional love and devotion.”
