# Why Don't Famous People Die in Plane Crashes Anymore? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696 "2016-03-02T01:34:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/21 "2016-03-02T05:59:34Z")
They still die in airplane crashes. You are mostly referring to entertainment personalities but there are other types of famous people too. [“Steve Fossett was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon.”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett) He went on a routine scouting flight in Nevada in 2007 in a small plane and never returned. The remains of both him and his plane were not found until over a year later by chance despite extensive search efforts. [Lewis Katz, American businessman, philanthropist, and newspaper publisher, who was a co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer died along with several others when his flight crew tried to take off in a chartered Gulfstream from Hanscom field outside of Boston on May 31, 2014 because they ignored the pre-flight checklists and left the control locks in place.](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/08/ntsb-reports-reveal-hanscom-crash-tragic-last-moments-before-seven-people-perished/zGGFJ2cEHJpd7nqlFrXoEM/story.html) They crashed and burned at about 150 mph when the plane refused to take off and ran out of runway. That last one hit close to my heart because that I am a life-long aviation enthusiast and perpetual flight student and that is my home field. There is no excuse for it but it happens with alarming regularity usually on a smaller scale. I read all of the NTSB crash reports that I can because they are available online and flying magazines publish notable ones every month. The striking thing is how many high-time private pilots die during routine trips. Some of them fly straight into the side of a mountain in an area that they have been to hundreds of times before just because they got distracted. Aviation is not a cheap pursuit at all so the people getting killed may not be famous to you but many of them are wealthy and notable. There is a general idea that airplanes are much safer than cars or just about any other form of travel. That is completely true when we are taking about airliners but it is false when it comes to smaller planes. They can be as safe as you are but the overall safety record is only a little better than motorcycles because people make dumb mistakes and they can become fatal quickly in a smaller plane at low altitude. They aren’t inherently dangerous per se but you do have to pay close attention to absolutely everything every single flight because even one missed item on the checklist could mean the difference between life and death. Airlines enforce that strictly but Private pilots and Charter Operators can get too complacent and lazy. I believe the biggest difference is that true celebrities tend to fly on larger charter planes with professional flight crews rather than just piling into a small plane these days. A lot (but not all) of the more notable crashes and deaths in the past were from celebrities that just hopped on a small plane with little planning using a flight crew that was more amicable than qualified to fly. The safety record of the charter flights is still much worse than the airliners but you can easily go a few years without a high-profile accident if you get lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/22 "2016-03-02T12:48:32Z")
There is an interview in the March issue of “Smithsonian Air and Space” magazine with Tom Costello. He has covered aviation for NBC News the last decade. When asked if his job has made him wary of flying, he replies no, in fact he is convinced more than ever that flying is the safest form of transportation. Far safer than driving to the airport. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/23 "2016-03-02T13:08:59Z")
I’d like to add Melanie Thornton to the list, who died in an air accident in 2001 - which I think is reasonably contemporaneous for the purposes of this thread. It seems she was bigger in Europe than in the United States, but I’m sure she’d count as a celebrity. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/24 "2016-03-02T14:11:57Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > …Randy Rhoades and JFK Jnr on your list, but Rhoades is scarcely a household name… _Rhoads_ is one of the most famous hard rock/heavy metal guitarists of all time (though it has to be said that his fame is partly due to his death). He’s certainly the most famous out of the dozen guitarists who have played with Ozzy Osbourne (excluding Tony Iommi), even though he was only around for two studio albums. Personally, I think he’s hugely overrated. But it’s ridiculous to say he’s not a famous person. News of his death was carried in every major US newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/25 "2016-03-02T15:51:47Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Well, John Denver was flying an experimental plane with a known, potentially fatal design flaw. Cite: [AskTog: John Denver: When Interfaces Kill](http://www.asktog.com/columns/027InterfacesThatKill.html) To call this a design flaw suggests that it was the fault of Burt Rutan, the plane’s designer. In fact the flaw you are referring to is a departure from Rutan’s design. The original design did route fuel lines through the passenger compartment, which was part of the rational for the change. Back to the original question, in my involvement with general aviation I have observed what I call “rich guy syndrome”. Wealthy individuals adopt a habit of letting underlings handle details, and place a high value on their own time. This leads to them assuming things are in order rather than checking themselves during a pre-flight. Also, with their time being so valuable and all, there is an even stronger temptation to attempt to complete a flight in marginal weather conditions. Finally, if they have passengers, failure to complete a flight may seem like a sign of incompetence. In general, I think the real reason may be 24 hour news cycle. Just like how every child abduction is in the national news for months, celebrity plane crashes tend to get far more press now than they used to, so the celebrity’s tend to be far more aware of the dangers and avoid them. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/26 "2016-03-02T15:51:58Z")
Manfred von Richtofen, Roald Amundsen, Amelia Earhart, Joseph P. Kennedy, Vladimir Komarov … perhaps we just have fewer famous aviators now-a-days. Perhaps we have no famous aviators today _unless_ they die. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/27 "2016-03-02T15:52:40Z")
Singer and reality TV star Jenni Rivera was a lot more famous in Mexico than the U.S. but I think she qualifies. She was killed in along with six others when the LearJet they were travelling in crashed in the mountains of Northern Mexico in December 2012. > **[Singer, reality TV star Jenni Rivera dies in plane crash | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/showbiz/mexico-singer-plane/)** > > Millions of fans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border mourned the death of Jenni Rivera, whose performances of soulful ballads sold out concert halls and made the singer a household name for many. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/28 "2016-03-02T16:00:47Z")
Art Vance wasn’t quite able to land a Grumman Hellcat on I-40 … ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/29 "2016-03-02T16:11:04Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Hmmm…Princess Diana, I guess. And Desmond Llewelyn. (auto fatalities not doing anything stupid) ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/30 "2016-03-02T16:15:08Z")
[Here is a list](http://planecrashinfo.com/famous.htm)of famous people killed in airplane crashes. From my reading they peaked in the 1990s and have gone down every since. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/31 "2016-03-02T16:34:10Z")
Payne Stewart. MLB pitcher Cory Lidle ran his plane into a NYC office building. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/32 "2016-03-02T17:09:15Z")
As somebody said above, there’s really two disjoint categories of celebrity accident: celebrity dies while riding as a passenger in a chartered aircraft, a commercial airliner, or their personal bizjet, versus celebrity dies while piloting their own aircraft, be it great or small. Those two situations have almost nothing in common and deserve separate treatment. As to the former: I’m going to suggest that the difference between the 1970s and before versus the 1980s & subsequent is mostly the much higher quality & professionalism of the charter / bizjet industry now vs. then. Jan 1 1980 wasn’t a solid dividing line, but more a time point where I choose to say the improvements really got going to achieve critical mass. Any difference between, say 1990 and today is almost purely statistical noise. As to the latter: Flying your own airplane goes in and out of style as a rich person hobby. Right now it’s pretty out. In roughly the 1980s it was more in. In professional aviation we have a saying: “A fool and his money are soon flying more aircraft than he can handle.” That doesn’t explain every celebrity pilot death, but it does most of them. Most of the rest of the reasons were covered by **Shagnasty** ’s excellent post above. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/33 "2016-03-02T19:14:31Z")
One famous person who has survived two private plane crashes in 2002 and 2010 is NASCAR team owner Jack Roush. The 2002 plane crash in a lake in Alabama was especially close because Roush was underwater, unconscious from a concussion. Fortunately a former Marine was nearby in a boat and rescued him, applying CPR despite suffering cramps and first degree burns. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/34 "2016-03-02T20:49:22Z")
Am I the only person thinking we need to make up a playlist? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/35 "2016-03-02T20:57:15Z")
U2 pilot and spy swap prisoner Francis Gary Powers died in a helicopter crash. He was flying a news chopper for a local TV station in LA. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/36 "2016-03-02T21:25:17Z")
I don’t think anybody has mentioned the [2010 crash of a Polish Air Force jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash) near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the president of Poland and his entire entourage, including World War II veterans, members of Parliament, most of the senior officers of the Polish military, one of the co-founders of the Solidarity trade union, etc. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/37 "2016-03-02T22:19:38Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > I don’t think anybody has mentioned the [2010 crash of a Polish Air Force jet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash) near Smolensk, Russia, which killed the president of Poland and his entire entourage, including World War II veterans, members of Parliament, most of the senior officers of the Polish military, one of the co-founders of the Solidarity trade union, etc. I was going to mention it, but you beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/38 "2016-03-02T22:32:38Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Another point to consider is you sampling method. Your list excludes really big name celebrities like Carol Lombard or Will Rogers who died in the 40s. I’m sure we could find others form the 20s through to the 60s as well. Once you include these, you see that it’s not unusual to have one celebrity per decade die in this manner. You just locked onto a period that was insignificantly higher. Carole Lombard. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/39 "2016-03-03T00:51:40Z")
Another recent one was Ted Stevens, although he was in an old bush plane that was of similar vintage to the planes involved in most of the crashes in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_from\_CB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/278dde/32.png) [@Alex\_from\_CB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_from_CB)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696/40 "2016-03-03T23:01:29Z")
Baseball players… Roberto Clemente and Thurmond Munson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-famous-people-die-in-plane-crashes-anymore/747696.md?page=3)