Greenacres Learjet Crash Victims Named: Family, Nanny and Couple Among 9 Killed

The families of the nine people killed when a Learjet 60 crashed into a Florida mobile home park on Sunday, November 1, 2026, have named the victims, ending a day of official silence about who was aboard the private jet. In a joint statement on Monday, November 2, relatives identified a family of four, their children's nanny and another couple as the seven passengers, alongside the two pilots, on the flight from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

The passengers were Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen Sharp, 40, and their children Emma, 2, and Charlie, 4; the children's nanny, Anita Maria Cetina; and another couple, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr. The pilots were Captain and 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, who had earned her private pilot's licence at 17 and was communicating with air traffic controllers until the final moments of the flight. All nine died when the jet crashed near Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, on Sunday afternoon.

Key Points

• Families issued a joint statement on Monday, November 2, 2026, naming all seven passengers on the Greenacres Learjet 60 that crashed on Sunday, November 1.
• The passengers were Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen Sharp, 40, their children Emma, 2, and Charlie, 4, nanny Anita Maria Cetina, and couple Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
• The two pilots were also killed; co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, had got her private pilot's licence at 17 and was praised on Monday for communicating with controllers "right to the end."
• Authorities have not yet formally released the victims' names, saying DNA matching of remains will take time; families said they were grateful to first responders and to the Palm Beach County community.
• Palm Beach County has asked Governor Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency for the crash area, and hundreds of displaced mobile home park residents still have no return date.

What Happened

The Learjet 60, operated as an Aurora Jet charter, left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at 10:37 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, bound for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. At about 12:47 p.m., the crew reported light clear ice, described as manageable, and moderate turbulence at about 35,000 feet, with air temperatures reported at minus 47 degrees Celsius in the National Transportation Safety Board's first briefing and minus 53 degrees Fahrenheit in the Palm Beach Post's live account of the same radio calls. The crew asked to climb from 35,000 feet to 37,000 feet, citing more precipitation ahead.

About a minute later, the flight came apart in the most literal sense. At about 12:48 p.m., the crew issued a mayday as the jet descended at 10,000 feet a minute. Within seconds it was descending at 20,000 feet a minute, then 22,000 feet a minute while banking at 60 degrees. The last transmissions, as recounted at the NTSB briefing on Monday, included "We're going to crash into the ground" at 12:48:53 p.m. and "We're out of time" at 12:49:22 p.m. The jet crashed at about 12:50 p.m. near Military Trail and 10th Avenue North in Greenacres, exploding into a fireball that sent debris across a half-mile radius, crushed cars, cut power, damaged a water main and displaced an estimated 600 people from nearby mobile homes.

On Monday, investigators were still working through that debris field in heavy rain. NTSB board member Tom Chapman told reporters that there was evidence the aircraft had begun breaking up before impact, though he did not say which parts came off or why, and no cause has been determined. The crater where the jet struck the ground was filling with water, Chapman said, adding: "There will definitely be some challenges."

It was against that backdrop that the families spoke. Their joint statement, posted to Facebook on Monday afternoon, read: "We are deeply grateful to the first responders, investigators, and the Palm Beach County community for their care, and to everyone who has reached out with love. Our hearts are also with the families of the pilots, who are grieving alongside us."

Background and Context

The Robinson-Sharp family was, by the accounts of relatives and social media, a family of entrepreneurs. Dudley Sharp, 70, Helen Sharp's father, told the Palm Beach Post by phone on Monday: "It's quite a blow. We had a daughter, her husband and two grandchildren on the plane." He said his family was still gathering details about the crash that killed his 40-year-old daughter, her 45-year-old husband and their young children. Adam Robinson's father, Theodore, 77, confirmed his son's identity but said authorities had not yet formally notified the family of his passing.

Social media accounts for the couple suggested one was a potter and the owner of a public relations company, and the other was a software founder who had posted to LinkedIn shortly before the crash. Those details, reported by the Palm Beach Post, give a first sketch of lives cut short, but they are not a full biography, and the families have asked, implicitly, to be allowed to grieve without the speculation that has already surrounded the crash online.

The co-pilot, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, had already been identified by her family before Monday's joint statement. She grew up in Palm Beach County, earned her private pilot's licence at 17 while still a senior at West Boca Raton High School — before she had a driver's licence — and told a local television station at the time that her dream was to become a commercial airline pilot. Her sister Giulia, 21, told reporters outside the family home in Boca Raton on Monday that Nathalia "fought until the last moment she could," calling her a brave and amazing girl who had wanted to fly since she was 12 and who "showed any girl could do what it takes."

The flight itself was a private charter, not a scheduled airline service, and it was flying into weather that investigators now say is a major focus of the inquiry. Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, reviewing flight data and radar, said the thunderstorm the Learjet flew towards had shot up 15,000 feet in 20 minutes and reached 48,300 feet tall by the time of the crash. At 12:48 p.m., the first officer asked to climb, citing more precipitation. The mayday came about 20 seconds later. That sequence — a fast-growing storm, a climb request, and then a catastrophic descent — is now the central timeline for the investigation, but Chapman cautioned on Monday that it was too early to say what caused the crash, or who knew what, when.

Greenacres Learjet Crash Victims: What the Families' Statement Changes

Until Monday afternoon, the official position was silence on names. As of Monday morning, authorities had not released the names of those who died, and Palm Beach County officials said on Monday afternoon that there was still no timeline for doing so. County Administrator Joe Abruzzo's office said it would likely be a long time before names were formally released, because remains must be positively identified using DNA. "There's some DNA that needs to be matched," Abruzzo said. "It's a lengthy process."

The families' joint statement therefore does something the official process cannot yet do: it gives the public names, ages and relationships, and it does so with the families' consent. That matters for two reasons. First, it allows friends, colleagues and communities in Texas and Florida to mourn specific people — a mother and father and their two toddlers, a nanny, a couple, and two pilots — rather than an anonymous count of nine. Second, it draws a line under the online speculation about who was aboard, which had already begun to fill the gap left by the official silence.

It does not, however, replace the official identification process. Abruzzo's warning about DNA matching means that the formal, legal identification of remains is still under way, and the families' statement should be read as a family identification, not as a coroner's finding. That distinction is important, and it is why US News Pulse is reporting the names as identified by the families in their joint statement, while noting that authorities have not yet formally released them.

Reactions and Quotes

The most striking defence of a victim on Monday came not from a family member but from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who used his personal account on X to push back against online criticism of the 20-year-old co-pilot. "She was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation," Isaacman wrote, in remarks first published by Florida Today. "She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die."

Isaacman pointed out that Filgueiras was second-in-command aboard the jet and was the person communicating with air traffic controllers shortly before the crash. In the recording, a person in the cockpit said the crew was "managing the ice," encountering "moderate" turbulence and seeking "better rides," according to audio posted by LiveATC. Isaacman cautioned the public against drawing conclusions about the cause before investigators finished their work, writing that key questions remained unanswered, including the aircraft's history, whether it suffered structural damage, and whether turbulence and other factors played a role.

At the crash site, the human cost was measured in displacement as well as death. Armando Perez, a nighttime truck driver who lives near the site, told the Palm Beach Post that a supersonic boom had jolted him upright in bed. "I thought, 'is this freaking Iran?'" he said. "That's when the screaming and crying" from neighbours started. Perez, his mother and his stepfather were among hundreds of residents put on Palm Tran buses and driven to the Greenacres Community Center, with only two days' worth of clothes, their phones, shoes, passports, wallets and a blanket for their three-year-old chihuahua, Chupita. Many residents were evacuated without their cars, which many use for work as contractors or tradesmen. "They're without cars, without food," County Commissioner Joel Flores said.

Bishop Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez of the Diocese of Palm Beach dedicated an All Souls' Day Mass on Monday to the victims, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Cemetery in Royal Palm Beach, seven miles northwest of the crash site. "As a community of faith, we mourn alongside those who are grieving and unite in prayer for all who have been affected," he said in a prepared statement. "I am especially grateful to our firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency personnel and all first responders for their courageous and selfless service during this difficult time."

Why It Matters

For the families, Monday's statement is a moment of control in a process that has otherwise been controlled by investigators, coroners and the weather. By naming their loved ones together, the families of the passengers and, by extension, the pilots, have given the public a way to understand the crash not as a debris field or a flight-data timeline, but as nine individual lives.

For the investigation, the naming does not change the technical questions, but it does raise the stakes for getting them right. The NTSB's preliminary report is usually expected within about a month, with a final report often taking a year or more. In the meantime, investigators will try to recover the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — the "black boxes," usually bright orange — which Chapman said on Monday they were "very hopeful" of recovering, despite the water-filled crater and the half-mile debris field.

For Palm Beach County, the crash is also a civic emergency. County Administrator Abruzzo said on Monday that he had asked Governor DeSantis to approve an executive order declaring a state of emergency, making the county eligible for funds to help displaced residents and nearby businesses. "We recognize that this area may be closed for quite a bit of time," Abruzzo said, adding: "There's evidence everywhere." There is no timeline for reopening the closed stretch of Military Trail, because the NTSB must finish its work first, the crash site must be repaired, and engineers must inspect the surrounding road to ensure it is structurally sound.

What Happens Next

The NTSB investigation will continue at the site and in laboratories, with weather, icing, structural breakup and the crew's decisions all under examination. The families' identification will be followed, in time, by the formal identification of remains through DNA matching, and by the release of names by authorities. The displaced residents of the mobile home park next to the crash site still have no return date; several dozen are in a shelter, others are staying with relatives, and the county is exploring temporary housing and hotel and bus vouchers for those whose cars were crushed by debris.

US News Pulse will follow the NTSB's preliminary findings, the formal identification process and the return of displaced residents as those developments are confirmed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who were the victims of the Greenacres Learjet crash?

Families identified the seven passengers as Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen Sharp, 40, their children Emma, 2, and Charlie, 4, nanny Anita Maria Cetina, and couple Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr. The two pilots, including 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, were also killed.

When did the Greenacres Learjet crash happen?

The Learjet 60 crashed at about 12:50 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, November 1, 2026, near Military Trail and Cresthaven Boulevard in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, Florida, on a flight from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

Have authorities formally released the victims' names?

Not yet. Palm Beach County officials said on Monday that formal release would take time because remains must be positively identified using DNA. The names in this article come from the families' joint statement on Monday.

What caused the Greenacres Learjet crash?

No cause has been determined. The NTSB said on Monday that there was evidence the aircraft began breaking up before impact and that weather, including icing and a fast-growing thunderstorm, is a major focus, but investigators have not said what caused the crash.

What happens to the hundreds of people displaced by the crash?

About 400 to 600 people were displaced from a nearby mobile home park. There is no return date yet; several dozen are in a shelter, others are with relatives, and the county is exploring temporary housing, hotel vouchers and bus vouchers, and has asked the governor for a state of emergency declaration.

Related coverage: NTSB: Greenacres Learjet broke apart before impact, killing all nine aboard, Greenacres Learjet co-pilot identified as Nathalia Gadelha, 20, who got licence at 17, Greenacres plane crash: all 9 aboard Learjet killed, officials confirm.