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List of deaths by aircraft misadventure
From PlaneSpottingWorld, for aviation fans everywhere
This is a list of famous people who have died by various forms of aircraft misadventure.
This list is sectioned by type of aircraft. For a list of aviation-related deaths by occupation of the person see the separate list of people who died in aviation-related incidents. There are also lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners.
Contents
Aircraft crash
- Thomas Selfridge - September 17, 1908 (first man to die in an aircraft accident)
- Charles Rolls - July 12, 1910 (founder of Rolls-Royce, first Englishman to die in an aircraft accident)
- Eugene Ely - October 19, 1911
- Harriet Quimby - July 1, 1912
- Raymonde de Laroche - July 18, 1919
- Lothar von Richthofen - July 4, 1922 (WW 1 ace and brother of Manfred von Richthofen, who was the top ace during the war)
- Dmytro Vitovsky - 1919
- Bessie Coleman - April 30, 1926
- Roald Amundsen, 1928
- Knute Rockne - March 31, 1931
- Carlos Gardel - June 24, 1935 crash on takeoff of overloaded plane, Medellin Colombia.
- Will Rogers, Wiley Post - August 15, 1935
- Jose Sanjurjo July 20, 1936
- Emilio Mola June 3 1937
- Amelia Earhart - July 2, 1937
- Amy Johnson - January 5, 1941 - drowned after parachuting from her aircraft
- Frederick Banting - 21 February 1941
- Carole Lombard - January 16, 1942
- Fritz Todt - February 8, 1942 - Founder of the Nazi's infamous Organisation Todt.
- Prince George, Duke of Kent - August 25, 1942, Scotland, on active service
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto - April 18, 1943 - plane shot down
- Leslie Howard - June 1, 1943 - Bay of Biscay, plane shot down
- Władysław Sikorski - July 4, 1943, Gibraltar at take off
- Edward O'Hare - November 26, 1943 U.S. Naval Flying Ace, namesake of O'Hare Airport
- Joseph Kennedy, Jr. - August 12, 1944
- Glenn Miller - December 14, 1944, English Channel
- Admiral Bertram Ramsay - January 2, 1945
- Lothar Sieber, killed after the first vertical take-off manned rocket in a Bachem Ba 349 - 1 March 1945
- Major Richard I. Bong - August 6, 1945
- Subhash Chandra Bose - August 18, 1945
- Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten - January 26, 1947
- Kathleen Kennedy - May 13, 1948
- 18 Torino footballers, 13 others (Superga air disaster) - May 4, 1949
- Marcel Cerdan, Ginette Neveu - October 27, 1949
- Richard E. Ellsworth, USAF Brigadier General - March 18, 1953
- Jacques Thibaud, September 1, 1953
- William Kapell, October 29, 1953
- Kim Sigler - November 30, 1953
- Wilbur Shaw, October 30, 1954
- Guido Cantelli November 24, 1956, conductor, Music Director La Scala
- Ramon Magsaysay - March 17, 1957
- Busby Babes, 8 players from Manchester United; 15 others - February 6, 1958
- Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Roger Peterson - February 3, 1959 (see also The Day The Music Died)
- Barthelemy Boganda - March 29, 1959
- Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban revolutionary October 28 1959
- 16 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo football players, 6 others - October 29, 1960
- Laurence Owen, Bradley Lord, among 18 members of U.S. figure skating team; 55 others - February 15, 1961
- Dag Hammarskjöld - 18 September, 1961
- Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas - March 5, 1963
- Ken Hubbs - February 13, 1964
- Jim Reeves - July 31, 1964
- Theodore Freeman - October 31, 1964
- Elliott See, Charles Bassett - February 28, 1966
- Tony Lema - July 24, 1966
- F. Nelson Blount - August 31, 1967
- Otis Redding - December 10, 1967
- Yuri Gagarin - March 27, 1968
- Mohammed bin Laden - Sept 3, 1967
- Rocky Marciano - August 31, 1969
- 14 Wichita State University football players, 17 staff - October 2, 1970
- 37 Marshall University football players, 6 guests [1] - November 14, 1970
- Audie Murphy - May 28, 1971
- 13 Montevideo rugby union players; 16 more die before rescue after 72 days - October 13, 1972
- Lance Reventlow - July 24, 1972
- Prince William of Gloucester - August 28, 1972
- Hale Boggs (U.S. House Majority Leader), Nicholas Begich - October 19, 1972
- Roberto Clemente - December 31, 1972
- Jim Croce - September 20, 1973
- Graham Hill - November 29, 1975
- Ronnie VanZant, Steve Gaines - October 20, 1977 (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
- 14 University of Evansville basketball players - December 13, 1977
- Thurman Munson - August 2, 1979
- 14 members of U.S. Olympic boxing team, 8 others - March 14, 1980
- Sanjay Gandhi - June, 1980 - political heir to Indian PM.
- Jaime Roldós Aguilera - May 24, 1981
- Omar Torrijos - July 31, 1981
- Jud Strunk - October 5, 1981
- Randy Rhoads - March 19, 1982
- Keith Green - June 28, 1982
- Stan Rogers - June 2, 1983
- Samantha Smith - August 25, 1985
- Ricky Nelson - December 31, 1985
- Samora Machel - October 9, 1986
- Zia-ul Haq - August 17, 1988
- H. John Heinz III - April 4, 1991
- John Tower - April 5, 1991
- Alan Kulwicki - April 1, 1993
- George S. Mickelson - April 19, 1993
- Zambia national football team - April 28, 1993
- Cyprian Ntayamira - April 6, 1994
- Juvénal Habyarimana - April 6, 1994
- Rep. Ron Brown - April 3, 1996
- Jessica Dubroff - April 11, 1996
- Brook Berringer - April 18, 1996
- John Denver - October 12, 1997
- Payne Stewart - October 25, 1999 (Note: The circumstances of this flight indicate that Stewart and the others on board most likely died several hours before their plane crashed.)
- John F. Kennedy Jr. - July 16, 1999
- Mel Carnahan - October 16, 2000
- 2 Oklahoma State University 2 basketball players and 8 staff - January 27, 2001
- Aaliyah - August 25, 2001
- Barbara Olsen, David Angell - September 11, 2001
- Melanie Thornton, Singer, November 24, 2001
- Hansie Cronje - June 1, 2002
- Paul Wellstone - October 25, 2002
2004
- Boris Trajkovski - February 26, 2004
- 10 Hendrick Motorsports team members (including family and pilots) - October 24, 2004
2005
2006
- Peter Tomarken - March 13, 2006 - American television personality
- Cory Lidle - October 11, 2006 - American baseball pitcher
Airship crash
- William A. Moffett, 1933, American admiral, in the USS Akron crash
- Lord Thomson, 1930, British Secretary of State for Air, in the R101 disaster
- Captain Graydon Evans, test pilot for Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. Died in crash in Fort Worth, TX, buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, Sandyville, OH, November 25, 1942
Balloon crash
Helicopter Crash
- Abdul Salam Arif, President of Iraq, 1966
- René Barrientos, President of Bolivia, 1969
- Gary Powers - August 1, 1977
- Michael Findlay, 1977
- Alia al Hussein, 1977
- Vic Morrow - July 23, 1982
- Jane Dornacker - October 22, 1986 (accident was broadcast live, during a traffic report)
- Rashid Karami, Prime Minister of Lebanon, 1987
- Stevie Ray Vaughan - August 27, 1990
- Marie Rossi - March 1, 1991
- Bill Graham - October 25, 1991
- Ulysses Guimarães, Brazilian leader of PMDB party, 1992
- Davey Allison - July 13, 1993
- Frank Wells - President and Chief Operating Officer, Walt Disney Company, 1994
- Matthew Harding - British businessman and vice-chairman of Chelsea football club, October 22, 1996
- M.H.M. Ashraff, Sri Lankan Muslim political leader, 2000
- Svyatoslav Fyodorov - July 2, 2000
- Alexander Lebed - April 28, 2002
- Igor Farkhutdinov, governor of Sakhalin, 2003
- Patriarch Peter VII of Alexandria, 2004
- John Garang, Sudanese vice-president, 2005
- Ramón Martín Huerta, Mexican minister of public security, 2005
- Howard Kerzner, heir to magnate Sol Kerzner, 2006
- Guadalupe Larriva, Ecuador 's first female defence minister and 6 other people (including her teenage daughter) 24 January, 2007[2][3][4]
- Colin McRae, MBE, a Scottish World Rally Championship (WRC) driver that was killed in September 2007 when the helicopter that he was piloting crashed.
