Tech CEO Adam Robinson and his family were identified as some of the victims of the Learjet 60 plane crash in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, November 1, which ended the lives of all nine on board.
Two hours after leaving Austin, Texas, the Bahamas-bound plane reported harsh weather conditions and then plummeted 27,000 feet in under a minute into a residential neighborhood.
Highlights
- A private Learjet 60 airplane crashed and exploded in Palm Beach, Florida, ending the lives of all nine on board.
- News reports and social media posts have identified tech CEO Adam Robinson, his wife, and two kids as some of the deceased passengers.
- Netizens have since flocked to Adam’s previous social media posts that they believe are an “eerie foreshadowing” of his demise.
Now, Adam’s past social media posts have sparked a raging debate online about the “foreshadowing” of his tragic demise.
“Might be the most unfortunate last image to tweet,” one user commented.
Four members of a family, their nanny, and two friends were identified after the fatal crash
While authorities have still kept the names of the late passengers and crew under wraps, a family member confirmed to the press that the Robinson family perished in the crash.
Adam was traveling to the Bahamas with his wife, Helen Sharp, a potter and an entrepreneur, and their two young children—Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2.
Dudley Sharp, 70, told The Palm Beach Post that she had “a daughter, a husband, and two grandchildren on the plane.”
A collective statement from a family member, Anthony Robinson, paid a heartfelt tribute to the family, saying, “Their loss will be felt deeply by all those who loved them and who they loved in return.”
The homage also included names of three other passengers who passed away: Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina.
A TMZ report claimed that one of the three was a nanny, and the other two were family friends.
As the details unfolded, eagle-eyed users sought out the social media profiles of the deceased individuals.
That is when Adam Robinson’s posts stirred quite a controversy.
Netizens were shocked by Adam Robinson’s “spooky” last post on social media
According to Adam’s social media, he is the CEO of MoltSets, a contact data and enrichment platform for businesses, with over 12,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter).
In his last tweet, posted on October 29, he had shared a business model comparison between Miro, Airtable, and Apollo, three popular cloud-based software platforms used by businesses for visual collaboration, database management, and sales prospecting, respectively.
To make his point, Adam included an AI-generated photo of the “Grim Reaper knocking on doors” meme template, wearing the usual black robe and carrying a bloody scythe. Many were “weirded out” by the coincidence of a Grim Reaper photo being his last post.
“Hell of an image to use in his final tweet,” one said. Another wrote, “People will really drop clues to their d**th without realizing it.”
A third wrote, “What is it with these d**ths that seem to have some kind of f**ked up foreshadowing.” A fourth said, “Grim Reaper in the photo is eerie!”
In another tweet dated April 17, Adam had written, “You don’t need to crash a plane to learn to fly… and you don’t need VC to build a business.”
It also went viral after the incident because of his word choice.
“Proverbs 18:21: The tongue has the power of life and d**th, and those who love it will eat its fruit,” one person quoted.
Co-pilot sent a six-word text message to boyfriend minutes before crash
A TMZ report also identified the pilot as Captain Jeff Gregory and the co-pilot as Nathalia Gadelha Filgueira.
Filgueiras, 20, messaged her boyfriend, also a pilot, at about 12:40 p.m. The text read, “I’ve got turbulence, I’ve got ice,” her stepfather, Thiago Corteleti, told the New York Post.
Filgueiras had got her pilot’s license in high school and had already accumulated approximately 1,300 hours of flying experience, Corteleti added.
At 12:48 p.m., the aircraft made a steep descent of over 27,000 feet in under a minute. The last data from the aircraft showed an altitude of 8,750 feet and a maximum vertical speed of more than -32,000 feet per minute (fpm).
The chilling final few messages from the cockpit included a frantic “Mayday” call shortly before revealing that they were in “overspeed condition” and descending at 20,000 feet per minute.
“We’re going to crash into the ground! We’re running out of time… We’re going to d*e!” the last audio said.
Mary Schiavo, an aviation lawyer and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, told The New York Times that excessive ice residue can “stall the plane” and make it defunct mid-air: “That is a plane not descending, but a plane falling.”
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator-in-charge Timothy Monville told reporters on Monday that the icing issue is being looked into as a probable cause for the accident.
"Tragic to read this in hindsight," one user commented
