Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon said he flew on the same Learjet, piloted by the same two aviators, weeks before the aircraft crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday, killing all nine people aboard.
Mixon, 30, wrote on X on Tuesday that he was “absolutely devastated” by the crash. “I flew on that exact aircraft last month with those same two pilots,” he wrote. “They were incredible professionals and genuinely wonderful people.”
He singled out 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, writing that her story had stayed with him. “Hearing the young woman’s story and learning about the bright future she had ahead of her makes it even more heartbreaking that her life was cut so short,” he said.
Mixon closed his post with a message to those who lost loved ones in the crash, calling it “a tragic reminder of how fragile life is” and urging people to “love on your loved ones while you can, because you never know what tomorrow may bring.”
Filgueiras was co-piloting the Learjet 60 alongside 55-year-old pilot Jeff Gregory on a flight that departed from Austin, Texas, bound for the Bahamas. Filgueiras grew up in Palm Beach County and made local headlines in October 2023 when she earned her private pilot’s license at 17, before she even had a driver’s license. By the time of her death she had been flying commercially for nine months and had logged 1,300 hours in the air, her family told The Post.
According to reporting on the crash, the pilots had asked to climb to roughly 37,000 feet to get above bad weather and reported icing and turbulence before the jet entered a steep nosedive, descending more than 20,000 feet per minute. The plane went down in a mobile home park in Palm Beach County, knocking out power lines and leaving a large crater.
Air traffic control audio captured Filgueiras screaming moments before impact, while Gregory could be heard reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the final seconds. Filgueiras had also texted her boyfriend, Justin, about ten minutes before the crash to say the plane had hit turbulence and was dealing with icing.
Those killed included tech executive Adam Robinson, 44, his wife, Helen Sharp, and their two young children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, according to confirmation from Robinson’s brother. Also killed were family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, and the family’s nanny, Anita Maria Apellido Cetina.
Federal investigators have not yet determined what caused the jet to go down, though officials said Monday it had been flying through temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane began breaking apart before impact, scattering debris across a half-mile radius. Investigators have not said whether the aircraft had a cockpit voice recorder or whether such a device survived the crash.
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