The doomed Learjet pilot heard reciting the Lord’s Prayer moments before crashing in Florida was a devout Christian who “went home to be with the Lord,” his church said.
Captain Jeff Gregory, a 55-year-old married dad of three, was a devoted member of the Limerick Chapel in Pennsylvania, where both his parents had worked, a close friend, David Peters, told the Sun.
The church emailed congregants to break the harrowing news that the pilot was among the nine confirmed dead in Sunday’s crash.
Gregory “went home to be with the Lord when the plane he was flying crashed,” the church wrote.
Gregory’s faith was on display in the final moments as the private jet plunged 27,000 feet in just one minute before crashing in a fireball close to mobile homes.
He was heard in audio transmissions reciting the Lord’s Prayer as his 20-year-old co-pilot, Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, screamedthat they were about to die.
Gregory had wanted to be a pilot from a young age and “loved wearing his leather bomber jacket,” according to Peters, a former neighbor who called his late friend “very diligent and dependable.”
“I know he worked hard to become a pilot and it was something he truly loved and poured his life and heart into,” the friend told the Sun.
Gregory leaves behind a wife, Cheryl, 53, and three children.
The Bahamas-bound plane nose-dived near the Florida mobile home community of Greenacres Sunday afternoon – leaving a fiery crater in the middle of the street.
The other victims of the horrifying crash were identified as multimillionaire tech exec Adam Robinson, 44, wife Helen Sharp, and their kids Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, Robinson’s brother confirmed Monday.
Also aboard were friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr and nanny Anita Maria Apellido Cetina.
Federal investigators have not determined what caused the crash.
However, the plane was flying through temperatures of -50 degrees Farenheit and started to pick up ice and hit heavy turbulence, authorities said on Monday.
The plane began to break up before impact, scattering debris over a half-mile radius, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed in a press conference.
Investigators haven’t determined whether the plane had a black box cockpit voice recorder — or if the device survived.
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