A tech CEO who died alongside his young family in a Learjet crash told of how he aspired to fly on private planes and loved the status they conferred.
Adam Robinson, 45, and his family were killed Sunday when the private jet they were travelling on crashed near West Palm Beach, Florida while en route to the Bahamas.
The Retention.com CEO was reportedly first introduced to the private jet lifestyle in the early 2000s when he was working in New York City at Lehman Brothers, a now-defunct financial services firm. He said flying private quickly became 'part of my identity.'
'I had these Wall Street friends and hedge fund guys and like whatever else. Some of my very rich friends were [flying private] and I just assumed that it was inaccessible to me,' Robinson said in video of an undated interview shared online by viral social media account Pulcys. 'They were almost using it as like this status symbol.'
'You'd be sitting at a dinner table and then a guy would whip out his phone and be like "do you guys want to go to Vegas like tomorrow morning? We can go, like on a PJ. (private jet)" And it's like "yeah, actually, that sounds amazing",' he added.
Robinson said, at the time, for just a 'couple thousand dollars a month' he could 'fly for free from New York to Miami or Chicago.'
'It was at a time where I was single and travelling a lot. It was this feeling that I got of "wow, I can actually fly private too." I understand in the status that I got, you know, it became part of my identity,' he said.
The clip of Robinson speaking on the podcast has been widely shared in the wake of his death, but further details of the show he appeared on - and when it was recorded - have yet to emerge.
Adam Robinson, 45, and his wife Helen Sharp, 40, were aboard a Learjet 60 alongside their toddlers Emma, four, and Charlie, two, when it crashed in Greenacres, Florida on Sunday
Robinson's friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, (left) and the children's nanny, Anita Maria Cetina, (right) were also on the flight
A video has resurfaced of tech CEO Adam Robinson, who was among the 9 people k*lled in a Florida plane crash alongside his wife and two young children, talking about how he got into flying private 😳
— Pulcy (@Pulcys) November 3, 2026
“My very rich friends used to brag about how they could fly private instantly,… pic.twitter.com/uIAmegCDvN
The tech tycoon and his ceramicist wife Helen Sharp, 40, were aboard the jet with their toddlers, Emma, four, and Charlie, two, when it tumbled out of the sky at 20,000 feet per minute on Sunday afternoon.
The pilot, 55-year-old Jeffrey Gregory, could be heard in distressing cockpit audio reciting the Lord's Prayer as the Learjet 60 nosedived in Greenacres, Florida.
The family of four was traveling from their home in Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas for Robinson's birthday when the tragedy occurred, TMZ reported.
Robinson's friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, and the children's nanny, Anita Maria Cetina, were also on the flight.
It remains unclear what may have caused the jet to plummet into the ground and left a massive crater and destroyed nearby infrastructure, although federal aviators said Monday that stormy weather is being investigated as a possible cause.
When the business jet was heading east over Florida at 35,000 feet, the flight's co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, could be heard warning air traffic control that the aircraft was coming down.
'Descending 20,000ft per minute... we're going to crash into the ground,' the co-pilot said, as Gregory recited the Lord's Prayer in the background.
Audio from the cockpit captured the young co-pilot attempting to describe the crisis in the Learjet 60 aircraft to air traffic control in the moments before it went down.
The Learjet 60 nosedived into an intersection in disturbing dash cam footage before bursting into flames
In footage, a fireball erupted after the plane hit the road at what some experts said was a near-supersonic speed
The impact left a massive crater in the middle of the road, damaging nearby infrastructure
She could be heard saying the aircraft had banked 60 degrees, meaning it was flying sideways, and she was noting the altitude changes.
The Daily Mail has chosen not to publish the final seconds of audio, which are extremely distressing.
Filgueiras had also been messaging her fellow pilot boyfriend about facing heavy weather in the minutes before the plane crashed.
At a press conference on Monday, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said they believe severe weather was a 'significant factor' in the disaster and that part of the jet appeared to have broken off before the crash.
Officials said the pilots requested to gain 2,000 feet of elevation when they encountered a thunderstorm, moments before the aircraft spiraled to the ground.
Some aviation experts have speculated that the plane may have hit what pilots call 'coffin corner' while trying to climb above two storm systems.
The term describes the very narrow gap between safe minimum speeds and safe maximum speeds while flying at high altitude. If a pilot goes too slow or too fast, they can easily stall the plane or lose control.
The victims' families paid tribute to the deceased in a joint statement, reading: 'Adam and Helen were devoted parents, and Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, were the light of their lives. Helen and Adam were the love affair that will last forever.
Jeffrey Gregory, 55, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, was piloting a Learjet 60 when it nosedived into a road near West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday afternoon. He is pictured with his wife Cheryl. Source: JeffnCheryl Corbin-Gregory/Facebook
Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, was co-piloting the Learjet 60 and could be heard in distressing audio warning air traffic control that the aircraft was coming down
'Their warmth, generosity and gift for making people feel welcome touched so many lives. Their loss will be felt deeply by all those who loved them and who they loved in return.'
The statement continued: '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. They are deeply loved, and we will miss them endlessly.
'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.'
Robinson was an entrepreneur who founded the tech company Retention and regularly gave interviews about building a successful start-up.
Helen ran a communications firm called Influential PR. She also owned a successful, Aspen-based pottery studio called Helen Sharp Ceramics.
'On behalf of friends and family, it is with a heavy heart that we share that our dearest Helen was taken from us too soon,' read a statement from her family.
'To know Helen was to love her. The number of people grieving Helen and Adam is a testament to how many people were lucky enough to have them in their lives.'
According to an online profile, Robinson previously worked on Wall Street for 10 years before launching an AI startup named GetEmail.
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