I’m sickened by the attacks on the young woman pilot killed in Florida. She never gave up

On November 1, a Learjet 60 carrying two pilots and seven passengers was on a routine flight from Texas to the Bahamas. Within minutes, the crew reported icing, turbulence and a rapid descent. An emergency was declared. Witnesses saw the aircraft fall from the sky before it crashed in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people on board.

The pilots were captain Jeff Gregory, 55, with several decades of flying experience, and co-pilot Nathalia Filgueiras, 20, from Florida. Nathalia earned her commercial pilot’s licence while in high school, before she had learned to drive.

For those who fly, such a disaster feels very close to home. Aviation offers a unique perspective on life; on every flight, its practitioners must confront the possibility of death.

After an aircraft accident, many people with flying experience and plenty with none, become overnight experts. Amid the rush to lay blame, a young woman at the controls seems to attract a particularly harsh form of scrutiny.

“She was a DEI hire”. “She was texting her boyfriend and not tending to the aircraft”. “She should never have flown into a thunderstorm. Everyone knows you stay clear, pilot error”. “‘The girl’ was in a panic and didn’t hear the other pilot at all.” “I live near the airport and if there are clouds, they always go low”.

Lost amid the censure is the need to establish the facts. Critics would do well to stop referring to the pilot simply as “her”. Call this young woman by her name: Nathalia. Acknowledge that she lost her life in a catastrophic descent, one during which she continued to transmit information over the radio. Even as the situation unfolded, she remained on the frequency.

The final words of pilots involved in fatal accidents make for difficult listening. Once heard they are not easily forgotten. In moments of extreme stress, our survival instinct takes hold. Panic can wash over us. Pilots must resist this, drawing on their training to act rationally and follow procedures. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

Nathalia did not give up. She did not fall silent or display resignation. She made a mayday call and continued relaying information to air traffic control. She reported that the aircraft was both descending and banking at 60 degrees, a steep angle that would have generated significant G-forces under terrifying circumstances. I hope the controller’s response provided some measure of comfort: “I’m here with you. Talk to me.”

Those transmissions may yet provide important clues for investigators. The cockpit voice recorder is unlikely to have survived a crash so forceful; it drove the aircraft into the ground like a missile.

On flights such as this there is generally a pilot flying and a pilot monitoring. While the pilot flying’s primary responsibility is to control the aircraft, the pilot monitoring supports the operation by handling communications, checklists, and examining the aircraft’s systems and flight path. That is likely why we hear Nathalia’s voice, rather than that of Captain Jeff Gregory, the pilot in command.

No one could listen to those radio calls without being deeply moved. I found myself thinking about this young woman and the promise that lay ahead of her. About her love of flying, and how that same passion ultimately brought about the sudden end of her life.

So, to read, almost in disbelief, the pile-on on X and other disreputable corners of the internet has been sickening. This feels like sexism writ large, directed at a young woman. Would the reaction have played out quite the same way had Nathalia been a man? It’s a question worth asking. Has any comparison been made between the junior pilot doing her job and the senior pilot seemingly saying his prayers as the aircraft plummeted to the ground?

When I first obtained my commercial pilot’s licence at the age of 19, I felt ready to take on the world, only to be told that the travelling public did not want a woman in the left-hand seat; consequently I would not be hired. One operator put it bluntly: “No one wants to hear, ‘this is your captain speaking’ in a female voice.”

I wish I could say that attitude has disappeared. But before dismissing it as outdated, ask yourself: are there still people who feel a flicker of unease when a voice from the flight deck belongs to a woman?

Implicit in many of those attitudes of the time was the view that women were somehow less reliable, less capable, or more emotional than men, particularly at “that time of the month”.

I wanted to fly agricultural aircraft and was told it was not “a job for a girl”. As an air traffic control trainee, the only woman in the room, I was asked: “How does it feel coming to work every day knowing you’re not wanted?” One flying instructor’s advice was brutally straightforward: “Go find a husband.”

Fine. That was the 1980s. Many professions carried those prejudices. But some of the reaction to Nathalia’s death suggests they have not entirely disappeared. Which is all the more reason not to jump to conclusions.

Never presume to know what happened in an aircraft accident. Leave it to the investigators. Take a moment to honour those who lost their lives. Feel the weight of that loss. And thank the gods who watch over those who choose to leave the earth behind.

You want to remember that below the sea of cloud lies eternity - Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Wind Sand and Stars.

Sussan Ley is a former leader of the Liberal Party, a writer, and a non-executive director of Snowy Hydro.

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Sussan Ley is a former leader of the Liberal Party, a writer, and non-executive director of Snowy Hydro.