The pilot at the helm of the private plane that crashed in Florida has been remembered as a ‘dependable’ family man by those close to him.
Jeffrey Gregory, 55, was killed alongside eight others after the Learjet 60 he was captaining nose-dived into a street in Palm Beach County on Sunday (1 November) and exploded into a fireball.
Further details about the victims who perished in the aviation tragedy have been emerging since they were identified yesterday and tributes continue to flood in for the passengers and crew who passed away.
Tech tycoon Adam Robinson died alongside his wife Helen Sharp, and their two young children Emma, four, and Charlie, two, when the jet that was bound for the Bahamas ran into difficulty.
The children’s nanny Anita Maria Cetina and another couple, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, also lost their lives, as did two crew members – Gregory and his 20-year-old co-pilot, Nathalia Filgueiras.
Gregory perished in the tragedy that stunned Florida on Sunday (Facebook)
An audio recording captured Filgueiras’ frantic final moments in the cockpit, as she was heard telling an air traffic controller: “We’re going to crash into the ground…Holy f**k, we’re out of time.”
The Learjet rapidly lost altitude after it’s crew had complained of ice and turbulence, before a mayday call was issued.
Tom Chapman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that the volatile weather conditions are a ‘major focus of the investigation’, while investigators are also probing whether ‘there was some breakup of the aircraft before impact’.
A church attended by the pilot of the plane, Gregory, has now issued a tribute to the married father-of-three. He is survived by his wife Cheryl, 53, and their adult children.
He was piloting the plane alongside Nathalia Filgueiras (Aki Kuusisto via AP)
The Limerick Chapel in Pennsylvania sent an email to its worshippers confirming that Gregory was among the victims of the plane crash.
According to the New York Post, it explained that the pilot was heard ‘reciting the Lord’s Prayer’ in his last moments, while saying he had now gone ‘home to be with the Lord’.
A lifelong friend and former neighbour of Gregory also spoke to The US Sun about the heartbreaking loss.
David Peters explained he had gone to school with the late pilot, lived next to him and later worked alongside him. He said they had both grown up attending the Limerick Chapel and that their parents previously worked there.
Describing his pal as ‘very diligent and dependable’, he told how Gregory had dreamt of becoming a pilot since he was a child – and ‘loved wearing his leather bomber jacket’.
Gregory ‘truly loved and poured his life into’ flying
“I know he worked hard to become a pilot and it was something he truly loved and poured his life and heart into,” Peters told the publication.
LADbible has contacted the Limerick Chapel for further comment.
Gregory’s co-pilot Filgueiras handled communications with air traffic control as the private jet began losing altitude at a significant pace. Prior to her death, she had shared footage from inside the cockpit of the Learjet online.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman – who the space agency describes as a ‘skilled pilot’ who has had more than 8,000 hours in the air – shared a lengthy social media post defending the 20-year-old on Monday.
The billionaire, 43, said he felt ‘compelled’ to chime in on the conversation surrounding the Learjet crash after seeing a host of people ‘critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls’.
Gregory’s 20-year-old co-pilot was heard communicating with air traffic control (Threads/@itsnatfilg)
Describing the criticism of Filgueiras as ‘troubling’, he wrote: “She was the second-in-command (SIC), and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die.
“I have heard final calls from friends, from military pilots with thousands of hours in fighter aircraft, and they are just as heartbreaking because they know the end is approaching.”
Isaacman urged people to let investigators do their jobs rather than jumping to conclusions, while offering his sympathies to the victims families.
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