Family of four, two close friends and nanny also died in crash as pilot identified as 55-year-old Jeff Gregory
Nathalia Filgueiras, 20, was co-pilot of the private Learjet 60 en route from Austin-Bergstrom international airport in Texas to North Eleuthera airport in the Bahamas on Sunday when it suddenly plummeted out of the sky, killing all onboard, her mother told the New York Times.
Later on Monday, the family of the passengers who died posted a statement on Facebook identifying the victims and paying tribute to them.
It named them as Adam Robinson, 45, a Texas-based technology entrepreneur; his wife Helen Sharp, 40; and their children, Emma, four, and Charlie, two. The statement said close family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr were also killed, along with Anita Maria Cetina, the children’s nanny.
The pilot in charge of the Learjet was identified by TMZ and other media outlets on Monday as Jeff Gregory, 55, an experienced aviator from Pennsylvania.
It’s exactly what the co-pilot does. Communicating with the ATC, reading instruments and any relevant checklist to the pilot. During an emergency like this, the pilot’s primary job is keep both hands on the stick and do everything in their power to get the plane under control and either land safely or return to a safe altitude until they can land. The co-pilot is the one who takes a step back from controls and gets all relevant information to the pilot and ATC in the tower.
If you’ve ever watched the movie Sully, it’s a decent example where the senior/veteran pilot is attempting what he can with the controls that are responding while the co-pilot goes through the emergency checklist and attempts to restart the engines.
Generally co-pilot refers to the pilot not in command, as opposed to the pilot in command (pic), the roles of pilot flying and pilot monitoring usually change from flight to flight even if the same flight crew sticks together, and occasionally even during a single flight (especially during emergencies, since almost all airlines require the PIC to become the pilot flying, if not already, during an emergency).
Pilot in command never changes during a flight, so co-pilot generally refers to that role split, as opposed to whatever the duties of monitoring and flying happen to be at a given time.
What if they die or parachute out. What if the plane splits in two with the PIC in one half. Can the other half nominate a new PIC.
There’s some subtlety about Sully’s case here. He was captain and pilot monitoring during the takeoff while the first officer was pilot flying.
After the engines failed, Sully used his authority as captain to take over flying.