MIAMI — The father of the 20-year-old co-pilot who died in Sunday’s Palm Beach County crash spoke for the first time about his daughter on Friday, saying he was one of the first people who taught her how to fly.

A licensed pilot himself, Allan Filgueiras said he had gone up with her in planes when she was as young as 12. She grew up in Boca Raton.

“This compounds the tragedy,” his Coral Gables lawyer Stuart Z. Grossman said.

Filgueiras listened to the entire recording of Air Traffic Control communication during the crash, the last minutes capturing the dire moments of his daughter, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, urgently telling the Miami air traffic controller of the plane’s rapid descent.

“I did listen to that, many times,” said Allan Filgueiras, “trying to find a clue in my head how that happened.”

The father said he and his daughter often flew together, to Key West or Naples. When she got her private pilot’s license at 17 and then got a job flying planes, she told him she was getting paid to do something she would have gladly paid to do.

Allan and Grossman spoke on Friday, seated next to each other, at a news briefing at the Coral Gables office of Grossman, Yaffa & Cohen. Filgueiras hired the firm to represent him and his family.

The family is not taking legal action for now. No lawsuit is imminent, Grossman told The Miami Herald after the briefing.

“I’m awaiting the findings of the NTSB,” he said, adding he had confidence in letting the government investigate.

The Learjet 60 pilot, Jeffrey Gregory, and Filgueiras took off from Austin, Texas, at 10:40 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, on their way to Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Gregory, 55, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, obtained his airline transport pilot’s license in 2021, according to Federal Aviation Administration airmen records.

Shortly before the crash, Filgueiras could be heard telling an air traffic controller at the FAA’s Miami Center there were icy conditions and turbulence, according to LiveATC.net audio. She shouted “mayday, mayday” and “declare an emergency” before announcing the aircraft was descending at 20,000 feet per minute.

“We’re going to crash into the ground,” she yelled before cutting out.

Her father talked about her life and her love of flying.

“She was beautiful,” her father said. Born in Miami, her parents taught her Brazilian Portuguese at home in order to retain some of their culture. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have learned it,” he noted.

He recounted on Friday that “I wanted to be by her side, to help her.”

Filgueiras was composed at the briefing, for his daughter, he said. Yet there were moments when he teared up and his voice was filled with sadness.

“Nathalia doesn’t want to see her father falling apart, so I’m going to find a way to make her proud,” he said.

He has three other children and a wife he has to do the same for.

“I have to find a way to go on.”

Grossman, the attorney, said “Nathalia was a top pilot.” He recalled that, “everyone who flew with her said that.”

While Grossman said he has several questions, including one over falling airplane parts during the flight, none is over her qualifications.

“She was exactly where she should be,” he said, “in that seat.”

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