A deadly plane crash wiped out nine people in an instant, sending shockwaves around the world. It didn’t take long for a repulsive theory to spread.
It didn’t take long for a sick theory to emerge on social media after the crash of a luxury jet that killed a Texas tech entrepreneur and his family.
Dashboard cameras captured the moment the Learjet 60 burst into a fireball as it plunged into a road near US President Donald Trump’s heavily fortified Mar-a-Lago estate.
It had been caught by a storm supercharged by El Nino as it carried its precious human cargo towards a holiday in the Bahamas.
But the one element that 4chan, the notoriously misogynistic, conspiracy-laden chat group that gave birth to the so-called QAnon prophecies, has seized upon is that its co-pilot was a 20-year-old woman.
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras had wanted to be a pilot since primary school.
She had earned her licence at age 17.
Her voice was among those heard during the flight’s panicked final moments.
The X account @thechovanone – purportedly belonging to Mixed Martial Arts commentator and sports betting bookie, Joshua Chovan – quickly found a 2023 interview with the young aspiring pilot.
“This news segment is no longer the uplifting giggly feel good spot it was intended to be. This is extremely disturbing dangerous and irresponsible.”
“If I get on a plane and see a female pilot, I’m getting off. I’ll never fly with a female pilot. They should be at home in the kitchen cooking,” added a video post by self-declared “boss of misogyny” @MatrixPrime_.
“I’m sorry, I don’t even want female Uber drivers, to be honest. Stick your a** home, in the kitchen, I don’t give a f**k. You are not flying a plane, you’re not putting my life in danger.”
Both quickly went viral.
4chan picked up the idea and ran with it.
“DEI is anagram of DIE,” one anonymous post asserts.
Diversity, Equality, Inclusiveness (DEI) is a bugbear of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
But US President Donald Trump’s personally appointed NASA chief has snapped back.
“I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls,” writes NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, himself a pilot with 8000 hours of experience.
“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.”
‘We’re out of time’
“I’ve got turbulence, I’ve got ice,” Ms Filgueiras texted her boyfriend, Justin, just 10 minutes before her death.
She was second-in-command.
She was doing her job: Supporting the pilot.
That’s why her voice was recorded making the mayday radio calls under the call sign “Bravo Delta”.
The senior pilot, 55-year-old Jeffrey Gregory, was concentrating on the controls. As he should have been.
The Learjet was two hours into its flight from Austin to the Bahamas.
And the weather had turned ugly.
It wasn’t the only aircraft experiencing problems. Other commercial flights reported dangerous thunderstorm conditions and requested that their flight paths be reviewed.
One JetBlue passenger flight questioned its air traffic control orders.
“So you’re gonna make us go through a, uh, severe thunderstorm?” the captain is recorded challenging a controller.
He then makes a snap override decision: “So we declare an emergency, making a left turn heading 260 for severe weather avoidance”.
The Learjet may have encountered a similar unexpected storm cell.
Ms Filgueiras is recorded reporting, “We have light, clear ice that is manageable and moderate turbulence” as it crossed over Florida.
She reported the air outside was -47C: “We’re managing the ice, but it is moderate turbulence …. If you have any better rides, let us know”.
Air traffic control responded, saying the Learjet’s path appeared to be “far outside” the weather front.
“Now we’re picking up precipitation. We need to climb 370 Bravo Delta,” Ms Filgueiras replied.
Permission was granted.
It took just 22 seconds before her voice – increasing in anxiety – is heard calling an emergency: “Bravo Delta. We’re descending 8000. Mayday. Mayday, we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute”.
Sixteen seconds later: “We’re gonna crash into the ground. 722 Bravo Delta”.
Another 18 seconds pass: “Look outside! We’re out of time!”
Blame game
“Everybody’s jumping to conclusions about the pilot; it’s like Monday morning quarterbacking. ‘Oh, it’s her fault’,” retired airline pilot Mark Stephens told US media.
“Well, that’s a load of crap. And she wasn’t even the captain.”
Reports confirm Ms Filgueiras had the appropriate Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licences and clearances. And junior pilots regularly fly paired with much more senior counterparts.
She was pursuing her dream job.
“Some people think that it’s weird that I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car,” Ms Filgueiras told hometown media in 2023.
“A lot of people think it’s funny. I think it’s funny, and I now want my [driver’s] license really bad.”
She had been a commercial pilot for nine months.
She’d accumulated 1300 hours of flying experience.
She would have turned 21 in January.
Repeated air safety analyses over recent decades have found no link between pilot gender and accident rates.
So, why blame her?
Those defending Ms Filgueiras’ role in the incident point to a global backlash against women’s rights over the past decade. Especially within the United States.
Female pilots are just as subject to this abuse as any other profession.
But a 2025 study by the University of Waterloo suggests they may actually generally outperform male counterparts during high-pressure flight situations.
“We can’t assume that because two pilots are looking at the same things, they will react the same way,” the study’s lead author, Dr Naila Ayala, stated at the time.
The researchers used eye-tracking glasses to measure pilots’ comprehension of instruments during a simulated emergency.
“Our study shows that women may be better at keeping control and making decisions in stressful flight scenarios.”
The ‘other’ conspiracy theory
“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,” NASA’s Administrator Isaacman writes.
He also alluded to another social media conspiracy theory that has so far garnered less algorithmic acceleration (especially on Elon Musk’s X).
That relates to the heavy fortification of the estate belonging to his boss, President Trump.
The Learjet struck the ground just 10km from its restricted flight zone. The 47th President of the United States had flown out of the nearby Trump International Airport aboard Air Force One an hour earlier.
Both have significantly upgraded their air defences in recent weeks.
Mobile LOCUST laser systems and Humvees toting Avenger short-range ground-to-air missile systems have been spotted parked at Mar-a-Lago. More have been deployed to Trump International.
“The US Secret Service is operating in a heightened threat environment, and we continuously adapt our protective operations to incorporate cutting-edge tools, technology, and methods to safeguard our protectees,” the Secret Service told US media.
The most recent incident, an air incursion on October 24, prompted an F-16 interceptor to be scrambled.
Follow the evidence
“I understand the public interest given the footage and audio,” Mr Isaacman explains.
“But you do not know the aircraft’s maintenance history, whether there was a structural failure, if any failure was induced by turbulence, overspeed, or overcontrol, or everything happening in that cockpit.
“I am sure weather will be part of the investigation, but beyond that, it is speculation.”
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), supported by the Federal Aviation Administration, has begun investigating the Learjet’s crash.
Flight tracking data captured the aircraft plunging at a rate of 8km per minute. Video footage and photos confirm the end result.
Next comes an in-depth examination of the physical wreckage and flight recording devices.
Investigators have already told US media there are indications the Learjet 60 may have suffered a structural failure in the horizontal stabiliser attached to the tail. It was found several kilometres from the main crash site.
Any such failure would cause the pilots to lose flight control.
And the weather was far from ordinary.
The Super El Nino event in the eastern Pacific Ocean has been supercharging weather across Central America and the Gulf of Mexico for months.
At the time of the crash, Florida was being subjected to 43cm of rainfall within just six hours. That’s twice what is needed to register as a 1-in-1000-year weather event.
“Tragically it may have been the cause of the jet crash, as a meso low formed and concentrated 5” per hour rain rates, and lightning, with possible icing in the cloud,” says Cornell University atmospheric sciences Professor Jeff Berardelli.
The tragedy has real-world implications.
Technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, and their children, aged 4 and 2, were among the victims. The children’s caretaker, Anita Maria Cetina, also died. Two further passengers were listed as Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
Pinpointing the exact cause of their deaths will save lives in the future.
Algorithm-driven social media scandals generate clicks. And profits.
“Let people investigate, learn, and share the facts. Be respectful to those who perished and the families who carry their memories,” Mr Isaacman concludes.