How did Nathalia Gadelha earn her pilot's license at 17?

Quick facts

• Born: Born about 2006 (age 20 at death)
• From: Palm Beach County, Florida; family has Brazilian roots
• Known for: Earning her private pilot's license at 17, before she held a driver's license; co-pilot of the Learjet 60 that crashed in Palm Beach County
• Flight hours: 1,300 hours logged by age 20
• School: West Boca Raton High School
• Dream: To become a commercial airline pilot

Her story

Nathalia Gadelha, also known as Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, was an American-based pilot from a Brazilian family. She came from a family with Brazilian roots and spent much of her childhood in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Nathalia began taking flying lessons in 2020, learning from her father before graduating from American Flyers flight school, with dreams of becoming a commercial airline pilot. She was a senior at West Boca Raton High School when she gained her pilot's license in 2023, before she even got her driver's license. The license came through the School District of Palm Beach County's Aviation Academy, which covered the cost of the program entirely.

At the time, she told CBS12:

"I definitely do brag because people say, 'Oh, you can't drive,' and I'm like, 'Yeah, but I can fly'."

According to information provided by her family following the accident, she had accumulated more than 1,300 flight hours by the age of 20. News of her death focused attention on her early achievements in aviation. At 20, she was sharing experiences associated with the aviation career she had discussed publicly as a teenager.

The crash

The plane was bound for the Bahamas after departing Austin, Texas, and went into a steep nosedive, dropping at a rate exceeding 20,000 feet each minute before impact.

Her family told the New York Post that she was the co-pilot. Her family said: "She was the co-pilot and couldn't make any decisions." The cockpit voice recordings released after the crash captured a mayday call in the plane's final seconds. Just 35 seconds after the initial mayday announcement, the last words from the cockpit were "we're out of time."

Her stepfather Thiago Corteleti confirmed her identity and told the New York Post that she had texted her family about turbulence and ice before the plane went down. Her mother often shared pictures of the family flying together in small planes, while her sister reposted a video on TikTok in the hours after the crash.

The FAA (the Federal Aviation Administration) and the NTSB (the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates aviation accidents) are investigating the cause of the crash.

Yes, flying a commercial aircraft at 20 is legal under FAA rules, though it comes with a ceiling: the co-pilot role on a charter flight like the one Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras was aboard sits within what a commercial certificate permits, but the highest-level certificate required to fly for the major airlines carries a higher age floor.

What each certificate allows

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that sets the rules for all civil aviation in the US) runs a three-rung ladder:

• A private pilot certificate requires a minimum age of 17, and a commercial pilot certificate requires a minimum age of 18, under FAA rules 14 CFR §61.103 and §61.123 respectively.
• The Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate, the highest level of FAA pilot certification and what major airlines require before putting anyone in a cockpit on scheduled passenger service, carries a standard minimum age of 23 under 14 CFR §61.153.

A commercial certificate is what you need to be paid to fly. The ATP is what comes next, when you're ready for the airlines.

Where Nathalia Gadelha fit in that ladder

She began flight lessons in 2020 under her father's guidance, earned her private pilot's license at 17 while attending West Boca Raton High School, and later graduated from American Flyers flight school.

The ATP certificate and the airlines themselves would have been her next step, available to her at 23.

The question investigators will ask

Whether Gadelha held the specific type rating for the Learjet 60, a separate qualification beyond the base certificate that certifies a pilot on a particular aircraft model, is what the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates aviation accidents) will examine. Age alone was not a legal barrier to her role. What will matter is whether every certificate, rating and flight-hour requirement for that specific seat on that specific aircraft was met, and the NTSB investigation is ongoing.