FINAL MOMENTS

Pilot’s Chilling Last Words Before Deadly Plane Crash Revealed

A harrowing clip captured the panic on board the aircraft as it plummeted toward the ground at 20,000 feet per minute.

An audio recording has captured the panic and horror aboard an aircraft moments before it crashed into a residential area in Florida.

“Mayday, mayday—we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute!” the pilot of the Learjet 60 told air traffic control as the plane began to plunge toward a busy road, according to a clip obtained by CNN.

DEVASTATING

Private Jet Plummets Into Residential Area of Palm Beach

Lauren Hartley

“We are in an overspeed condition descending 20,000 feet per minute,” they added seconds later. “We’re going to crash into the ground!”

The aircraft crashed just before 1 p.m. on Sunday on Military Trail in Cresthaven, West Palm Beach. It left a burning crater in a busy residential area just miles from the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and Palm Beach International Airport, renamed Donald J. Trump International Airport earlier this year.

The plane was en route from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. Dashcam footage shows it hurtling toward the ground at astonishing speed before erupting in a fireball at impact. All nine people aboard were killed instantly.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described the crash as “cataclysmic.” He said video of the incident “looked like a missile going down” and that “there is a lot of debris that was strewn as a result.”

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy has called it a “horrific tragedy.” Mary Schiavo, a former DOT inspector general, told CNN of the footage that it was “not a controlled descent,” and that “it’s clear, whatever happened, they had lost control of the plane.”

It is not yet known what caused the plane to fall almost 27,000 feet in a single minute. Audio of the pilot’s final exchange with air traffic control caught her saying there was ice on the windows after turbulence unexpectedly sent them up an additional 700 feet.

The plane had also just passed through a storm cell minutes before its descent, though it remains unclear if the weather contributed to the crash.

One of the nine victims has now been identified as 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha. Her mother and stepfather confirmed her identity in comments to the New York Post.

Gadelha became a licensed private pilot at just 17, while studying at West Boca Raton High School. She had not yet even obtained her driver’s license.

Pictures and video footage from the crash site show a sizable crater near residential buildings and businesses. Roughly 600 people were left without shelter on Sunday because the site blocked entry to a mobile home park.

“I heard and felt the boom,” one person told CNN. “The power immediately went out and is still out,” they went on, adding that they had seen “a large black cloud immersed in the air.”

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Another person who witnessed the crash said it was like “a meteor hitting the ground.”

“I thought it was thunder, but turns out it was a plane,” the person told NBC News. “I didn’t see any plane, but I saw the big crater in the ground.”

There were no immediate reports of injuries to people on the ground. The Daily Beast contacted the Federal Aviation Administration for comment. A spokesperson confirmed the crash details and said an investigation remains ongoing.

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