I was shocked and saddened by the information I saw about the number of famous personalities who lost their lives by tragic aircrashes at the pinnacles of their careers...
Jim Reeves
Soft-voiced country and western singer Jim Reeves6 enjoyed a string of hit singles in the early 1960s, including 'He'll Have To Go', 'I Won't Forget You' and, following his death, the biggest-selling single of 1964, 'I Love You Because'. His songs continued to record posthumous success right through to the 1970s, perhaps the most memorable being the 1966 hit 'Distant Drums'.On 31 July, 1964, Reeves was piloting a Beechcraft 35-B33 Debonair returning from Batesville, Arkansas to Nashville, Tennessee, when he ran into a thunderstorm. As was the case with the pilots in charge of the planes which killed Buddy Holly and Patsy Cline, Reeves was not qualified to fly on instruments. Two days later, the wreckage was found in dense woods ten miles south of Nashville. Reeves and his manager Dean Manuel were both killed. Coincidentally, both Reeves and Patsy Cline's pilot were trained by the same instructor.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd were the undisputed kings of Southern Rock, producing five best-selling studio albums between 1973 and 1977, as well as the hit singles 'Free Bird' and 'Sweet Home Alabama'. Formed by Ronnie Van Zant in 1964 from friends and schoolmates in Jacksonville, Florida, the band was at its peak when on a tour of the southern states of the USA on 20 October, 1977.
On Thursday, October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors, and five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair 240 developed an engine problem, near the end of their flight En route between Greenville, South Carolina and Baton Rouge, Louisiana and started consuming excessive fuel. Eventually running low, the plane crash-landed in woodland near Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing six of the 26 aboard and seriously injuring many of the rest. Sadly, the dead included three band members: vocalist Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and Steve's sister and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines.Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray were all killed on impact
Homi Jehangir Bhabha (October 30, 1909 – January 24, 1966)
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS was an Indian nuclear physicist who had a major role in the development of the Indian atomic energy program and is considered to be the father of India's nuclear program.He died in the Air India Flight 101 air disaster near Mont Blanc in 1966.
On the 24th of January 1966 at 0702 UTC, Air India Flight Number 101, a Boeing 707-437 called "Kanchenjunga" crashed on its regular route from Bombay (Mumbai) to London via Delhi, Beirut and Geneva. The plane was carrying 106 passengers and 11 crew members. It crashed into Glacier des Bossons (Bossons Glacier) on the south west face of Mont Blanc in France. At 4807 meters altitude, Mont Blanc is the highest summit in Western Europe. There were no survivors. It was quickly determined that the pilot had made a navigationalerror while descending for landing into Geneva. It was the second time such an air disaster had occurred on that part of the mountain, both crashes involving aircraft operated by Air India. Earlier on 3rd of November 1950 Air India Super Constellation called the "Malabar Princess," carrying 48 passengers and crew had crashed in almost exactly the same spot killing all on board.
After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. Bhabha also encouraged research in electronics, space science, radio astronomy and microbiology. The famed radio telescope at Ooty, India was his initiative, and it became a reality in 1970. Bhabha has since become known as the "Father of India's Atomic Energy Programme". The Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council has been giving the Homi Bhabha Fellowships since 1967. Other noted insititutions in his name are the Homi Bhabha National Institute, an Indian deemed university and the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, India.
Amelia Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937,
declared dead January 5, 1939)
Amelia Mary Earhart (pronounced "AIR-hart"); was a noted American aviation pioneer, and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.
'Amelia Earhart' was the 'Action Girl' of her time. She set a world altitude record in 1931, and again on 21 May, 1932, in her Lockheed Vega, and became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, repeating Charles Lindbergh's feat of 1927. Taking off from Newfoundland, Earhart successfully overcame a series of technical crises, including a fuel leak and a broken altimeter, before landing the following day at Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Four years earlier she had become the first transatlantic female passenger in a Fokker F7, the Friendship, in 1928.
On that occasion, after negotiating an Atlantic storm, the crew successfully managed to land the Fokker at Burry Port, Wales.Earhart's end came during a round-the-world attempt in a Lockheed Electra 10E with navigator Fred Noonan in July, 1937. Having successfully travelled eastwards from Miami to Lae,New Guinea, they attempted a 2,500-mile hop to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. They never arrived, and a major air/sea search failed to recover anything. It is assumed that either they ran into a storm, or their navigation led them off course, and scattered clouds made it difficult to identify the tiny island before they ran out of fuel.
Ritchie Valens (17) (Richard Steven Valenzuela; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959)
Buddy Holly (22)
Jiles "the Big Bopper" Richardson (29)
On February 3, 1959, a small-plane Beechcraft Bonanza crashed shortly after taking off in a snowstorm near Clear Lake, Iowa, United States killing three American rock and roll musicians: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. The day was later called 'The Day the Music Died', by Don McLean in his 1971 song "American Pie". Pilot was not IFR qualified. Valens got to go on the flip of a coin leaving Tommy Allsup behind.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999),
often referred to as John F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK Jr., John Jr., John Kennedy or John-John, was a journalist, lawyer, pilot, and socialite. He was the first son of President John F.Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, and the younger brother of Caroline Kennedy and the older brother of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Known as the "American Son" Kennedy was one of the few presidential children to actually be raised in the White House. He was killed in a plane crash along with his wife and sister-in-law in mid-1999.
On July 16, 1999, Kennedy was killed along with his wife and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. He was flying a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and his wife were traveling to the wedding of his cousinRory in Hyannis, Massachusetts, which was then postponed, while Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard en route.
Soundarya (July 17, 1971 - April 17, 2004)
She was a film actress in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films. She had a successful career of 12 years as heroine in films until her death in a plane crash near Bangalore. She acted in more than 100 films.Soundarya died on April 17, 2004 in an plane crash near Bangalore when the four-seater plane Cessna 180 caught fire immediately after take off . She was on her way to Andhra Pradesh to campaign for Bharatiya Janata Party for the elections. Her brother, Amarnath, a producer of Kannada films and the pilot of the plane also died in the accident. She was just three months pregnant.
Dag Hammarskjöld,
Son of a Swedish Prime Minister7, Dag Hammarskjöld8 was an economist who represented Sweden in the United Nations, and in 1953 was elected UN Secretary General. During his tenure, he led diplomatic efforts in the Korean War, the Suez Crisis and the Congolese Civil War, and he commissioned the first UN peace-keeping force.It was on 17 September, 1961 that Hammarskjöld took a flight from Léopoldville9 on a Douglas DC-6B to negotiate a ceasefire between UN and Congolese forces with the president of the Katanga Province. The plane crashed overnight into jungle on the approach to Ndola airport, Northern Rhodesia10, killing all 16 on board. The official investigation cites navigational errors causing too low an approach, but conspiracy theories also exist, including one that the plane was bombed by Western intelligence agents. Hammarskjöld was posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize.
Wladyslaw Sikorski, (May 20, 1881 – July 4, 1943)
Polish national hero Wladyslaw Sikorski made his name fighting for independence against the Russian occupiers in the early part of the 20th Century. He led the Polish Army to victory in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, and served as Prime Minister in the newly-independent republic. Losing power in a military coup in 1926, he left politics, but returned after Germanyinvaded Poland in September, 1939, forming a government-in-exile, based in the UK. Sikorski found himself at odds with Stalin, who had designs on annexing Poland, and in 1943 he accused the Russians of the murders of 4,000 Polish officers in an atrocity at Katyn. Russian sabotage is one of a number of theories surrounding Sikorski's death on 4 July, 1943.
Returning from an inspection of Polish troops in the Middle East, Sikorski was a passenger on a Consolidated B-24C Liberator which took off for London after a stopover in Gibraltar. The plane crashed into the sea, shortly after take-off, for no obvious reason, killing 12 of the 13 on board. Sikorski may well have been betrayed by Kim Philby, the double-agent who was head of British counter-intelligence in the area at that time. He was killed, together with his daughter, his Chief of Staff, Tadeusz Klimecki, and seven others, when his plane, a Liberator II, serial AL523, crashed into the sea 16 seconds after takeoff from Gibraltar at 23:07 hours. He was subsequently buried in a brick-lined grave at the Polish War Cemetery in Newark-on-Trent, England. On September 17, 1993, his remains were exhumed and transferred to the royal crypts at WawelCastle in Kraków, Poland. Other than to confirm the identity of the remains, no forensic examination was made. On July 2, 2008 archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz gave consent for the exhumation of Sikorski's remains from their grave in Krakow. An exhumation was necessary to investigate the circumstances of how Sikorski died, in spite of the account provided by the British Government. In January 2009 Polish investigators concluded that there was no evidence Sikorski was murdered.
Ramón Magsaysay, (August 31, 1907 - March 17, 1957)
The third president of the Philippines, Ramón Magsaysay4 was elected to office in 1953, and is widely regarded as a man of integrity and a champion of the people. A former guerilla leader during the Japanese occupation, he was an ally of the United States, and was one of the founders of the anti-communist SEATO alliance in 1954.It was during a re-election campaign on 17 March, 1957 that Magsaysay boarded his presidential Douglas C-47 for Manila, having given a speech in Cebu City. Later that day, the plane's wreckage was discovered on Mt Manunggal in Cebu. One survived, a journalist, but 24 lost their lives. The cause is not clear, but the crash is believed to have been accidental.
