Husband, wife, children among those killed in Florida plane crash

• A married couple and their two toddlers were among the nine people killed in a Learjet 60 plane crash in Palm Beach County.
• The private plane, which departed from Texas, flew directly into a severe thunderstorm over South Florida.
• Experts suggest the pilot may have been trying to fly over the storm when it encountered trouble.

A married couple and two toddlers were among the nine killed in the Learjet 60 plane crash in Palm Beach County on Sunday.

“It’s quite a blow," said Dudley Sharp, 70. “We had a daughter, her husband and two grandchildren on the plane.”

Sharp, reached briefly by phone, said his family is still gathering details about the crash that killed his 40-year-old daughter, Helen Sharp, her 45-year-old husband, Adam Robinson, and their young children. Robinson's father, 77-year-old Theodore, confirmed his son's identity but said authorities have not yet formally notified them of his passing.

Social-media accounts for both the husband and wife suggest the two were entrepreneurs. Sharp was a potter and the owner of a public relations company. Robinson was a software founder who posted to his LinkedIn shortly before the crash.

While authorities have not confirmed the names of anyone aboard the Bahamas-bound private plane, relatives of another family identified a pilot as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, of suburban Boca Raton. She earned her pilot license as a teenager and told reporters in 2023 that she dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot.

The plane, which left from Texas, flew directly into a thunderstorm over South Florida that rocketed clouds skyward by 15,000 feet in 20 minutes.

Experts who reviewed flight path data, radar images and Filgueiras' final words to air-traffic control said the plane, in its last moments, may have been trying to fly above the storm, whose intense upward rush of moist, warm air may have led to the rapid freezing of water droplets that otherwise don’t ice up at higher altitudes.

An air traffic controller gaves permission to climb to 37,000 feet.

Moments later: "Mayday, mayday," the co-pilot said. "We’re descending 10,000 feet per minute."

Dramatic dash-camera footage captured the moment the plane plummeted into the ground at Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard near Greenacres and exploded into a fireball. The impact sent debris flying, crushing cars, cutting power, damaging a water main and displacing an estimated 600 people from nearby mobile homes.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. Reach her at [email protected].