March 1, 1962: Johnny
Dieckman, world fly-casting champion, died in a plane crash near Chicago, Illinois.
March 2, 1996: All five members of the
Brazilian rock group Mamonas Assassinas were
killed when their plane crashed near Sao Paolo, Brazil.
March 2, 1997: Sailor
Lars Bergstrom (62), a leading innovator in
sailing, died in a plane crash.
March 5, 1963: Patsy
Cline (30), Cowboy Copas (49),
Hawkshaw Hawkins (41), and Cline's manager
Randy Hughes were killed when their Piper PA-24
Comanche plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee, in adverse weather condisions.
Cline was famous for her country hit, “Crazy.” Copas and Hawkins were Grand Ole
Opry stars. They had been in Kansas City for a benefit for the widow of a
country disc jockey who had died in a car crash. Country star Jack Anglin of the
Johnny and Jack duo, was killed on the way to Cline's funeral.
March 9, 2000: Artyom
Borovik, a well-known Moscow journalist, and
Ziya Bazhayev, president of the Russian Oil
Alliance, were among nine people killed when their Yak-40 jetliner crashed
shortly after taking off from the Moscow airport.
March 13, 2006: Game show host Peter
Tomarken (63), a private pilot, and his second wife, Kathleen, were killed when
his Beechcraft Bonanza A36, N16JR, crashed a few hundred feet offshore in Santa
Monica Bay while climbing out from the Santa Monica Airport in California. When
he began having engine trouble, he tried to return to the airport but crashed
several hundred feet from the shore. Tomarken had hosted a number of different
game shows, including Press Your Luck, Hit Man, Bargain Hunters, and
Paranoia.
March 14, 1915: Pioneer aviator
Lincoln Beachey (28) died in a crash during an
exhibition flight at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California.
March 14, 1980: Polish singer
Anna Jantar, 22 members of the
U.S. Olympic boxing team, and 64 others were
killed when a Polskie Linie Lotnicze IIyushin IL-62 airplane crashed while
attempting to land at the Warsaw, Poland airport. The plane's #2 engine
disintegrated, causing severe damage to two other engines as well as the rudder and elevator control lines.
March 14, 1995: Argentine race car driver
Silvio Oltra and
Carlos Menem Jr., son of Argentina's president, were killed in a
helicopter crash.
March 15, 1998: Israeli air force general
Tal Shmuel Eldar (45) was killed in a helicopter crash.
March 16, 1991: Seven members of the
Reba McEntire band were among ten people killed
when their Hawker-Siddeley plane failed to clear a mountain top and crashed near San Diego, California.
March 17, 1957: Ramon
Magsaysay (50), president of the Philippines;
Gregorio Hernandez Jr., Secretary of Education;
and Jesus Paredes Jr., Executive-Secretary
of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, and four others died
when their converted army airplane (C-47 class) crashed into a tree at the top
of Mt. Manunggal while returning to Manila after a campaign trip to Cebu City.
Nestor Mata, a newspaper reporter, was the sole survivor.
March 18, 1939: Boeing's chief engineer
Jack Kylstra and 12 others (including a KLM
delegation) were killed when their Boeing 307 Stratoliner production prototype
broke up after failing to recover from a spin near Adler, Washington.
March 19, 1977: Formula One driver
Jose Carlos Pace (32) died in a plane crash.
March 19, 1982: When their Beechcraft
Bonanza F35 plane buzzed the tour bus of heavy metal star Ozzy Osbourne, lead
guitarist Randy Rhoads (25),
Rachel Youngblood, and the pilot were killed as
the plane crashed into a house in Leesburg, Florida.
March 20, 1998: John
Bauer (47), chief executive officer of Dynaweld Inc., died in a plane crash.
March 21, 1942: Carl
August Freiherr von Gablenz (48), founder of Lufthansa Airlines, was
killed in an airplane crash.
March 21, 1987: Dino
Martin (35), son of singer Dean Martin and a member of the Dino, Desi,
and Billy pop group, was killed in the crash of an Air National Guard F-4C
Phantom fighter jet in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. While flying
inverted at 560 mph, his plane hit a wall of granite after entering a cloud. His
pop group had one hit, “I'm a Fool.” His WSO (weapons systems operator) was also
killed in the crash.
March 22, 1958: Mike
Todd, his biographer Art Cohn,
the pilot, and co-pilot were killed when his Lockheed Lodestar private plane,
“The Lucky Liz,” named after Todd's wife, Elizabeth Taylor, crashed in bad
weather in the Zuni Mountains of New Mexico. During their flight, ice had
developed on their wings. The ice put too heavy a load on the engines, thus
causing the crash. Todd had been on his way from Burbank to New York City to
attend a Friars Club award meeting to receive the Showman of the Year award.
March 22, 1996: Col.
Robert Overmyer, an astronaut who commanded one of the last
successful flights of the space shuttle Challenger, died when the small plane he
was test flying went into a spin and crashed near the Duluth, Minnesota airport.
He was not able to free himself from the plane, a small-engine VK30 prototype,
in time to use his parachute.
March 23, 1994: St. Louis weatherman
Bob Richards of KDSK-TV died in a plane crash.
He committed suicide after being publically humiliated on the Steve & D.C.
radio show when they played tapes of his phone conversations with his girlfriend
(he was married at the time).\
March 27, 1977: When a KLM Boeing 747 and
a Pan American Boeing 747 jet collided on the runway of the Tenerife airport in
the Canary Islands, 582 people were killed, including 249 on the KLM jet and 333
of 394 on board the Pan American jet. It was the deadliest air crash in aviation
history. The collision was caused by the confusion in the airport after a
terrorist's bomb exploded inside the airport terminal. Among those killed was
Playboy playmate, actress, and producer Eve Meyer.
March 27, 1968: The first man in space,
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was killed in
the crash of his MiG-15UTI while on a training mission east of Moscow, Russia.
His body apparently was found two hours later frozen and reeking of alcohol.
March 29, 1959: The president and founder
of the Central African Republic, Barthelemy Boganda
(49), died when his plane exploded in mid-flight. Foul play was likely.
March 29, 2001: Eighteen people were
killed when a Gulfstream corporate jet owned by Hollywood producer Andrew Vajna
(Die Hard with a Vengeance, Total Recall, Rambo) crashed as it attempted
an instrument landing at the Aspen, Colorado airport on a misty snowy night. The
plane crashed into a small hillside, jumped a culvert, and smashed through a
fence. Among the 18 dead were Mirwais "Mir" Tukhi,
an assignment editor at Fox 11 TV station in Los Angeles;
Marissa Witham (22), an assignment desk
researcher at the same station; Robert New
(mid-30s), who had been president of UniCapital Corporation before it went
bankrupt; Mario Aguilar, a businessman and
aspiring actor; and Ori Greenberg (23), an
aspiring director who won a directing award at the Moxie!/Santa Monica
International Film Festival.
March 31, 1931: Notre Dame football coach
Knute Rockne (43) was one of eight killed
when a Trans Continental & Western Airways Fokker F10A plane crashed during a
heavy storm near Bazaar, Kansas. One of the aircraft's wings separated in mid
flight. In his 13 years of coaching the Notre Dame football team, they won 105
games, lost 12, tied 5, and won 6 national championships.
