Two-time Pro Bowl running back Joe Mixon says he flew on the same Learjet, piloted by the same two pilots, just weeks before the aircraft crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday and killed all nine people aboard.
Mixon, 30, a former Cincinnati Bengal, wrote on X on Tuesday that he was “absolutely devastated” by the news.
I flew on that exact aircraft last month with those same two pilots. They were incredible professionals and genuinely wonderful people.
He said he was especially moved by the story of 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras.
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.
Mixon offered prayers for the families of everyone aboard and called the crash “a tragic reminder of how fragile life is,” urging followers to “love on your loved ones while you can, because you never know what tomorrow may bring.”
Flight from Austin to the Bahamas
Filgueiras was co-piloting the Learjet 60 alongside 55-year-old pilot Jeff Gregory on a flight from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. She grew up in Palm Beach County and earned her private pilot’s license at 17, in October 2023, while still in high school and before she had a driver’s license. By the time of the crash she had been flying commercially for nine months and had logged 1,300 hours in the air, according to her family.
The pilots had requested to climb to roughly 37,000 feet to get above bad weather, reporting icing and turbulence before the jet entered a steep nosedive, descending at more than 20,000 feet per minute. It crashed into a mobile home park in Palm Beach County, knocking down power lines and leaving a large crater.
Air traffic control audio captured Filgueiras screaming moments before impact, while Gregory can be heard reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the plane’s final seconds. Ten minutes before the crash, Filgueiras had texted her boyfriend, Justin, saying they had hit turbulence and were dealing with icing.
Victims included a family of four
Those killed included tech executive Adam Robinson, 44, his wife, Helen Sharp, and their two young children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, according to Robinson’s brother. Family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr and the family’s nanny, Anita Maria Apellido Cetina, also died.
Federal investigators have not determined what caused the jet to go down, though authorities said Monday it had been flying through temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The National Transportation Safety Board said at a news conference that 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.
