Tech entrepreneur, wife, kids and friends among victims in Florida plane crash

The identities of the nine people killed in a private jet crash in Palm Beach County, Florida, were confirmed on Monday, following the fatal downing of a Bahamas-bound flight carrying a Texas tech executive, his family, two friends and two pilots.

Adam Robinson, 44, the founder and chief executive of the software companies Retention.com and RB2B, died when the $2 million Learjet 60 nosedived en route from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, sources close to the family told TMZ. The aircraft left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport before dropping sharply in Florida, leaving a smoking crater on the side of a road after witnesses captured footage of the plane erupting into a massive fireball.

Also killed were his wife, Helen Sharp, a ceramics artist, and the couple’s two young children, as well as their nanny, Anita Maria Apellido Cetina, and two family friends, Charmi Fehr and Rachael Reed.

“Adam and Helen were devoted parents, and Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, were the light of their lives,” the Robinson, Fehr and Cetina families wrote in a joint statement posted to Facebook by relative Anthony Robinson. “Helen and Adam were the love affair that will last forever. Their warmth, generosity and gift for making people feel welcome touched so many lives.

“Charmi and Rachel were full of joy and adventure. They loved their people fiercely, fully and without hesitation. From the moment they met, they were all in on each other and the life they were building. ... Anita Maria cared for Emma and Charlie with tenderness and devotion, and she was truly part of the family. She showed us a legacy of unconditional love and devotion.”

Prior to founding his software ventures, Robinson worked at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, according to his LinkedIn profile. Sharp frequently documented her artwork and family life on social media.

The aircraft was piloted by Jeff Gregory, 55, an experienced pilot from Pennsylvania. The co-pilot was identified as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, a Florida resident who earned her pilot’s license while in high school, as reported by the New York Post.

Filgueiras had logged more than 1,300 flight hours after receiving her private pilot’s license while a senior in high school, when she was able to fly a plane before learning to drive a car, her mother, Camila Corteleti, told The New York Times.

“She loved the freedom,” Corteleti said of her daughter. “It was completely different seeing the world from the top.” In a 2023 interview with CBS12, Filgueiras noted, “I like being different than everyone.”

The Learjet was cruising east at 35,000 feet on Sunday afternoon when one of the pilots radioed controllers to report ice accumulation and severe turbulence jolting the aircraft by as much as 700 feet. Audio captured one of the pilots making a “mayday” call as the jet descended at 20,000 feet per minute.

“We are going to crash into the ground,” the unidentified pilot said on the recording, later adding, “We’re out of time.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the impact in a residential area of Palm Beach as “cataclysmic,” telling reporters, “It looked like a missile going down and left a big crater on the side of the road.”

DeSantis added that no injuries or fatalities were immediately reported on the ground.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that the Federal Aviation Administration was sending a team to assist an investigation led by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Federal authorities have not yet formally confirmed the cause of the crash.