# Which presidents and prime ministers survived plane and helicopter crashes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669 "2016-03-11T18:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wizard101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Wizard101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wizard101)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/1 "2016-03-11T18:49:08Z")
Of the presidents and prime ministers that have been in plane/helicopter crashes, which ones survived? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/2 "2016-03-11T18:50:40Z")
George Bush Sr. comes to mind I expect though you want to qualify that as leaders who were in office at the time ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/3 "2016-03-11T19:17:24Z")
If you want to expand it to presidential _candidates_, then John McCain survived several. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/4 "2016-03-11T20:48:53Z")
I don’t think too many people have been both a president and prime minister, so there might not be any. 😉 I crack myself up, sometimes. Anyway, Canada’s [Lester B. “Mike” Pearson](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1957/pearson-bio.html) was in a plane crash during the Great War. ETA - Now that I think about it, Putin was both a President and a Prime Minister, but was he ever in a plane crash? ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/5 "2016-03-11T20:58:15Z")
> [@D18](#): > > Now that I think about it, Putin was both a President and a Prime Minister, but was he ever in a plane crash? In mother Russia President and PM not in plane crash but [make presidents plane crash](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/smolensk-plane-crash-lech-kaczynski-poland-russia). Maybe. It hasn’t been proven. But a President was in a plane crash. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/6 "2016-03-11T21:01:08Z")
Gnassingbé Eyadéma, President of Togo, [survived a plane crash in 1974.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Togo_plane_crash) > [@](#): > > Eyadéma attributed his survival to mystical powers and declared 24 January to be “Economic Liberation Day.”… > > Following the incident, a monument was established by the Togolese government near the crash site. The monument features a statue of Eyadéma standing tall on top of a plinth, flanked by images of his generals who died in the crash.[4] > > Eyadéma was not the sole survivor of the crash,[5][6] but he deliberately misrepresented the details of the accident to make himself look like a hero with superhuman strength who miraculously survived the disaster when everyone else was killed.[7][8] ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/7 "2016-03-11T21:05:24Z")
Obama was involved in a [collision](http://www.airsafe.com/events/celebs/obama.htm) between a plane on which he was a passenger and another while they were on the ground during his 2008 campaign. Not exactly a plane crash, however. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/8 "2016-03-11T21:13:20Z")
Here’s a list of [Presidents involved in aircraft accidents.](http://news.aviation-safety.net/2010/04/10/presidents-involved-in-aircraft-accidents/) All the crashes except Eyadema’s were fatal. The only other incidents where the President survived were when Brazilian President Arthur da Costa e Silva surived an emergency landing at Rio de Janeiro in 1967, and Botswana President J.K. Quett Masire survived an missile attack on his Presidential jet by an Angolan MiG in 1988. ---
**Author:** ![wellanuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@wellanuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wellanuff)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/9 "2016-03-11T22:18:16Z")
Churchill survived a minor plane crash in the days of biplanes when he was learning to fly. He also got hit by a car in New York, if that helps… ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/10 "2016-03-11T22:29:44Z")
Harold Macmillan’s plane (in which he was a passenger) crashed during the war, and he was quite badly burned. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/11 "2016-03-11T22:38:08Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > George Bush Sr. comes to mind > > I expect though you want to qualify that as leaders who were in office at the time Disqualified! He bailed out of the plane before it crashed, which is really good planning in my opinion. But his plane crashed without him so it doesn’t count. He seemed to like the parachute ride so much that he jumped out of several other perfectly good airplanes well into his senior years. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/12 "2016-03-12T01:27:04Z")
Bush Sr. was almost caught by Japanese soldiers after he bailed out of his plane . Other US prisoners captured in that same area were killed and eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/13 "2016-03-12T03:22:01Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > Disqualified! He bailed out of the plane before it crashed, which is really good planning in my opinion. But his plane crashed without him so it doesn’t count. Several sites say Bush Sr. survived not one but four plane crashes in WWII, but I haven’t found detail on the other three. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/14 "2024-05-20T23:26:32Z")
Mariano Rajoy, PM of Spain, survived an helicopter crash in 2005. [Cites](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidente_de_helic%C3%B3ptero_de_M%C3%B3stoles) in [Spanish](https://elpais.com/elpais/2007/07/17/actualidad/1184660225_850215.html) and in [English](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/spanish-opposition-leader-survives-helicopter-crash-1.1185624). He was opposition leader at the time, became PM later. He was accompanied by the President of the Madrid Autonomous Region, Esperanza Aguirre. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/15 "2024-05-22T17:17:11Z")
Trump’s jet clipped another jet while taxiing on May 12th. There’s weirdly too much hush-hush about it. E.g. they won’t say whether Trump was aboard. Given this was after the NJ rally and returning to FL he clearly was. The question arises: Define “crash”. IN [2022](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-plane-makes-emergency-landing-saturday-returning-new-orleans-rcna19395) there was an engine failure of the jet Trump was on forcing an emergency landing. Cf. _Final Destination_, Death doesn’t seem to be really even trying. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-and-prime-ministers-survived-plane-and-helicopter-crashes/748669/16 "2024-05-22T21:10:38Z")
None I can think of from Australia, but later Prime Minister John Gorton was a Hurricane fighter pilot in WWII and crash-landed heavily, which contributed to his [famously craggy appearance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gorton#/media/File:JohnGorton1968.jpg).