Has anyone famous ever died in a commercial air crash?

June 4, 2021 2:18 PM

Lots of famous people have sadly died in helicopter and general aviation/private plane crashes but has any notable celebrity ever died in commercial aviation?
posted by ftm to Travel & Transportation (27 answers total)

Television producer David Angell (Frasier) was on one of the 9/11 flights.
posted by mochapickle at 2:23 PM on June 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

Kyu Sakamoto in 1985.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:24 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Wikipeida has a List of fatalities from aviation accidents article. Most are private as you said, but if you search that page for "flight", after the first hit which is an X-15 test flight you get a bunch of commercial flights.
posted by tiamat at 2:26 PM on June 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

Carole Lombard died in the crash of TWA Flight 3
posted by arha at 2:27 PM on June 4, 2021 [9 favorites]

Depends on what you mean by "crash" and "notable celebrity", but Larry McDonald, a US Representative from Georgia, was killed when the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

Astronaut Sonny Carter and (former) Senator John Tower died in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311.

Ice hockey players Garnet "Ace" Bailey and Mark Bavis were on United Airlines Flight 175 on September 11th.

Several sporting teams have been the victims of commercial airline crashes or accidents.
posted by jedicus at 2:30 PM on June 4, 2021

Barbara Olsen, who was a pretty well-known conservative lawyer and married to another well-known conservative lawyer, was on the plane that flew into the Pentagon on 9/11.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:33 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

For certain levels of fame: American Airlines Flight 191, TWA Flight 800, Delta Airlines Flight 191, Eastern Airlines Flight 66,
posted by box at 2:34 PM on June 4, 2021

Berry Berenson, a model and actress, was another casualty from one of the planes on 9/11. I don't know if she was famous, exactly, but she was one of those people who showed up in the society coverage in fashion magazines.

For some reason I assumed that Samantha Smith died in a plane crash in Russia, but it was actually a scheduled commercial flight between Boston and Bangor, Maine. She was an American child who became famous after writing to Yuri Andropov and then visiting the Soviet Union.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:47 PM on June 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

He didn't die in the crash, but Gene Roddenberry.
posted by shadygrove at 2:59 PM on June 4, 2021

Stan Rogers in 1983.
posted by zeptoweasel at 3:16 PM on June 4, 2021 [13 favorites]

Linda McCartney’s mother was killed in the 1962 crash of American Airlines flight 1, but I don’t know if that meets your threshold of famous.
posted by FencingGal at 3:37 PM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Senator John Tower, rejected Bush 1 nominee for secretary of defense, died in a commuter plane crash in Georgia.
posted by Morpeth at 3:47 PM on June 4, 2021

Pioneering anthropologist of music Alan Merriam died in the crash of Lot 7 in Poland in 1980.
posted by spitbull at 4:53 PM on June 4, 2021

A bunch of the members of "Passion Fruit," a German girl group pop band died in a commercial air crash - Crossair Flight 3597. One of the survivors of the crash was irritated by the band's loud antics on the plane and requested that he and his wife be seated further away from them, which ultimately ended up saving their lives. (A coworker watches the Smithsonian Air Disasters show in the office, which is how I happen to know this.)
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:48 PM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Bertrand Russell survived the crash of a domestic flight in Norway in 1948.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:07 PM on June 4, 2021

Leslie Howard on BOAC 777.
posted by pompomtom at 9:38 PM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Playwright Larry Shue died in a commuter airplane crash in 1985. (Irony: I climbed to the crash site in the search for survivors, not knowing the author of one of my favorite plays ever, "The Foreigner," was aboard.)
posted by wjm at 11:40 PM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Polish pop singer Anna Jantar died when LOT 007 crashed on the outskirts of Warsaw, getting back from NYC.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:59 PM on June 4, 2021

Munich Air Disaster
posted by mani at 12:06 AM on June 5, 2021

That Wikipedia list that Tiamat posted has several entries well earlier than that X15 reference that are undeniably commercial: Juan de la Cierva (autogyro inventor), Arvid Lindman (former Prime Minister of Sweden) and Princess Cecile among others. Again, "Flight" brings up most of them, others just by looking down that list and seeing the name of a commercial airline.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:44 AM on June 5, 2021

Missing from that wiki list is the semi famous mountaineer Peter Mulgrew, who infamously had both his feet amputated after a disaster climb in the early 1960s led by Edmund Hillary.

Hillary dropped out of a commercial sightseeing flight to Antarctica - he was the celebrity 'guide' - and Mulgrew took his place. Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus killing everyone on board (247 people). Worst accident in Air New Zealand's history.

Hillary married Mulgrew's widow 10 years later.
posted by AFII at 3:16 AM on June 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Golfer Payne Stewart. Technically he and everyone else on the flight were dead before the crash, but I think it still works.
posted by JanetLand at 5:50 AM on June 5, 2021

But I guess Stewart's flight wasn't commercial, so that part doesn't work, sorry.
posted by JanetLand at 5:52 AM on June 5, 2021

Someone else mentioned Crossair 3597 above - another celebrity that died in the same crash was Melanie Thornton, lead singer of 90s Eurodance group, La Bouche.
posted by ryanbryan at 9:46 PM on June 5, 2021

Buddy Holly, 1959. Ronnie Van Zandt 1977.
posted by jtexman1 at 9:17 AM on June 6, 2021

Holly’s plane was private.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:26 AM on June 6, 2021

Van Zandt’s (and band mates) was a rented charter flight.
posted by artdrectr at 7:18 PM on June 6, 2021