September 2, 1983:
George Cogar has been missing since his plane went down in British
Columbia. Cogar helped found Mohawk Data Sciences Corporation during the 1960s.
He left MDS and founded the Cogar Corporation, designing and manufacturing
computer chips. He also invented the intelligent terminal, an early forerunner of the modern personal computer.
September 3, 1998: Dr.
Jonathan Mann, a pioneer in the fight against AIDS as the outspoken
head of a U.N. program on the disease, died in the crash of Swissair Flight 111.
September 3, 2007: millionaire adventurer
Steve Fossett (63), crashed his single-engine Bellanca airplane into
a mountainside near Mammoth Lakes, California. His plane and remains weren't
found until almost 13 months later.
September 5, 1949: At the 1949 National
Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, race pilot Bill Odom died when he crashed his P-51
Mustang as he tried to bank too sharply around the second pylon. His plane
flipped upside down and crashed into a nearby Berea home, killing a young mother
and her baby son as well as Odom. Odom was best known for making the longest
solo non-stop flight in the history of aviation up that that time. On March 6,
1949, Odom flew his Bonanza known as Waikiki Beech from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Teterboro, New Jersey (a total of 4,957 miles in 36 hours and 2 minutes).
September 9, 1942: The
Duke of Kent (39), the father of the present
one and an uncle to the Queen of England, was killed in an airplane crash over
Caithness, Scotland, while on active duty during World War II.
September 9, 1972:
Lt. Gen. George B. Simler and his aid,
Capt. Gil L. Gillespie, were killed on taking off from Randolph Air
Force Base. Simler was en route to assume command of the Military Airlift
Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
September 11, 2001: More than 3,000
people were killed when terrorists hijacked four jet planes and crashed them
into the two World Trade Center towers in New York City as well as the Pentagon
in Washington, DC. The fourth plane crashed in the wilds of Pennsylvania as
passengers fought with the hijackers. It was the worst terrorist attack in world
history. Obviously all the people who died in this tragedy are important, but
below are a few of the better known casualties. For a complete list of victims,
see the following web site:
http://www.september11victims.com.
American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los
Angeles, crashed into Tower 1 of New York's World Trade Center about 8:48 a.m.
EDT. The plane carried 81 passengers, two pilots, and nine flight attendants.
Among those killed in the plane were David Angell
(54), co-founder of Grub Street Productions and executive producer of NBC's
Fraser and Wings; actress and photographer
Berry Berenson (53), Anthony Perkins's widow;
Edward Glazer (41), CFO of MRV Communications;
Charles "Chuck" Jones (48), manager of space
programs for BAE Systems; Daniel John Lee
(34), road crew member for the Backstreet Boys; Daniel
Lewin (31), co-founder of Akamai Technologies;
Jeff Mladenik (43) and
Andrew Curry Green, executives with eLogic;
Laura Lee Morabito (34), national sales manager
for Qantas Airways; Tom Pecorelli (30), TV
cameraman for Fox Sports News, E! Entertainment, and many awards broadcasts;
Sonia Puopolo (58), ballet dancer;
David Retik, founding member of Alta
Communications, a media investment firm; and Douglas
Stone (54), co-owner of Odyssey Press.
United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 bound from Boston to Los
Angeles, crashed into the other tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. The
plane carried 56 passengers, two pilots and seven flight attendants. Among those
killed were Garnet "Ace" Bailey (53), former
NHL player and director of pro scouting for the Los Angeles Kings;
Mark Bavis (31), Los Angeles Kings scout;
James Hayden (47), CFO of Netegrity;
Heinrich Kimmig (43),
Klaus Bothe (31), and Wolfgang Menzel
(60), executives with BCT Technology; Robert LeBlanc
(70), professor emeritus of geography at the University of New Hampshire;
Timothy Ward (38), an executive of Rubio's
Restaurants; and William Weems, a commercial producer.
World Trade Center. 2,801 people were killed in the demolition of the
two World Trade Center towers and the two flights that hit them. Among them were
the following rescue workers: Patrick Brown
(48), NYFD captain and inspiration for Elissa Wald's romantic novel, Holding
Fire; Ray Downey, NYFD chief of special
operations command: “Sometimes in this job, good-bye is really good-bye.”;
William Feehan, NYFD first deputy commissioner;
Peter Ganci, NYFD chief; NYFD Captain
Timothy Stackpole; NYFD Captain
Kathy Mazza (46); NYFD Battaion Chief
Richard Prunty (57); NYFD Lieutenant
Michael Warchola (51); NYPD Captain
Daniel Brethel; Chris
Amoroso, Port Authority officer who led people to safety and died in
the collapse after returning to lead more people to safety; and
Rev. Mychael Judge, New York Fire Department
chaplain. Among people in the towers were Rosa Gonzalez,
a Port Authority secretary; David Alger,
president of Fred Alger Management; Eamon McEneaney,
three-time All American in lacrosse and one of 700 Cantor Fitzgerald employees
who died in the collapse of one of the towers; and John
O'Neill, former head of the FBI's counterterrorism section and head
of security for the World Trade Center.
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 en route from Dulles Airport
near Washington to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:40 a.m. The plane
was carrying 58 passengers, two pilots, and four flight attendants. Among the
passengers killed were Charles Falkenberg
(45), director of research for ECOlogic Corporation, his wife
Leslie Whittington (45), professor of public
policy at Georgetown University, and their two children
Zoe (8) and Dana
(3); Bud Flagg, retired Navy admiral;
Ian Gray (55), healthcare consulting firm
president and a principal with McBee Associates; Steven
"Jake" Jacoby (43), COO of Metrocall; Karen
Kincaid (40), partner in the law firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding;
Barbara Olson (45), TV commentator, lawyer, and
author as well as wife of the U.S. Solicitor General;
Mari Rae Sopper, women's gymnastics coach at UC Santa Barbara;
Lisa Raines (43), senior vice president of
Genzyme; Todd Reuben (40), partner in the
Venable LLP law firm; and a number of teachers and students on a National
Geographic Society school trip, including Ann Judge
and Joe Ferguson of the NGS (who had two
undersea volcanoes in the north Pacific named for them in early 2002).
Pentagon. More than 100 Army and Navy staff were killed in the crash,
including Capt. Gerald Deconto (44),
Capt. Robert E Dolan,
Capt. Lawrence Getzfred (57), and retired captain
Jack Punches (51).
United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 en route from Newark to San
Francisco, crashed near Shanksville southeast of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania at
10:10 a.m. The plane was carrying 38 passengers, two pilots, and five flight
attendants. Among those killed were Thomas Burnett, Jr.
(38), COO of Thoratec Corporation; Donald Greene,
manager of Safe Flight; Richard Guadagno
(38), manager of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge; Lauren Catuzzi
Grandcolas, author of You Can Do It! (posthumously); and
Leroy Homer, co-pilot and an honorary Tuskegee airman.
September 12, 2001:
Theodore Zylstra (67), a former member of the Washington state bar
association's board of governors; Geoffrey Vernon
(59), a retired publisher and ex-president of the University of Washington
alumni association; Dwight Mitchell, a
former Oak Harbor city councilman; the daughter of boatbuilder Ed Monk, and 15 others were killed when their plane
crashed as they were returning from a side-trip to see Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Mexico.
September 13, 2009: Captain
Asaf Ramon (21), son of Israeli astronaut
Ilan Ramon, was killed when his F-16 jet crashed south of Hebron during a
routine training flight.
September 15, 2006: Actor
Pablo Santos
(19) died in an airplane crash near Toluca, Mexico. He and five friends had
convinced the pilot of his father's airplane to take them up for a flight. Since
the plane only can carry six people, the pilot chose to put in less gas so the
seven of them would fit. 400 feet from landing, the plane ran out of gas and
dropped to the ground. Two passengers died in the crash. Santos had acted in a
number of movies, including Party Animalz, and TV shows.
September 16, 1929: Pilot
Russ Merrill died when his plane went down
in Cook Inlet. Merrill Field in Anchorage and Merrill Pass in the Alaska Range are named for him.
September 16, 1985: Stunt pilot
Art Scholl (53) crashed into the Pacific Ocean
off Encinitas, California, while performing an inverted flat spin as a stunt for
the Top Gun movie.
September 17, 1908: During a
demonstration flight for the U.S. Army in 1908, Lieutenant
Thomas Selfridge died of a crushed skull after
crashing in an airplane near Fort Myer, Virginia. He was the first person to die
in an airplane accident. The pilot Orville Wright suffered broken ribs, leg, and
pelvis. The accident occurred when one of the propellers separated and tore
loose the wires holding the rudder, thus causing Wright to lose control of the plane.
September 17, 1935: Len
Koenecke (31), who played baseball for the Giants and Dodgers, died
after being hit on the head by a fire extinguisher during a drunken brawl aboard
an airplane (shortly after being dropped by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
September 17, 2006: 10 Nigerian army
generals and three other military personnel were killed when a small Nigerian
air force plane crashed in central Benue state in Nigeria.
September 18, 1948: Businessman
Eugene Joseff (43), founder and president of
Joseff Precision Metal Products, a maker of aircraft and missile parts, and
Joseff-Hollywood, a producer of costume jewelry, died in the crash of a private
plane he was piloting.
September 18, 1961: Swedish diplomat
Dag Hammarskjöld (56), U.N. Secretary General,
and 15 others were killed when their U.N. Douglas DC-6B plane crashed in the
jungle of northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Sgt. Harold Julian, an American
security officer who survived the crash for five days, reported a series of
sparks in the sky and an explosion before the crash. There might have been an
attempt by Katanga rebels to intercept the plane in an attempt to take the U.N.
Secretary General hostage. A warning shot might have hit the plane and caused it to crash.
September 18, 1994: Nigerian soccer
player Omalie Aimuanmwosa was one of four
who died in a plane crash in southern Algeria. 24 others were injured.
September 19, 1944: Royal Air Force pilot
Guy Gibson (26), who was awarded the
Victoria Cross for leading the Dambuster Raid, died along with his co-pilot when
their Mosquito crashed over Holland after returning from a war mission as master bomber.
September 20, 1956: Tom
Gastall, the Baltimore Orioles catcher, died in a plane crash in Maryland.
September 20, 1973: Rock singer
Jim Croce (30), accompanist
Maurice Muehleisen, manager
Dennis Rast, comedian
George Stevens, and the pilot died when their chartered Beechcraft
E18S crashed while taking off from the Natchitoches, Louisiana airport. The
plane hit a tree when it failed to gain enough altitude on takeoff. Croce was
famous for his rock hits, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle.”
September 21, 1943: U.S. representative
John William Ditter (55) of Pennsylvania was
killed in a private plane crash near Colombia, Pennsylvania.
September 23, 1966:
George Skakel, Jr. (Ethel Kennedy's brother);
Dean F. Markham, former head of the Commission
on Narcotics; and several others were killed in the crash of an airplane near Riggins, Idaho.
September 23, 1985: Broadway playwright
Larry Shue (39) was killed in a plane crash
in Virginia. An Obie Award-winning author, Shue had two major Broadway
successes: The Nerd and The Foreigner.
September 25, 1978: When a Cessna private
plane and a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727 collided over San Diego,
California, 144 people died, including 135 on the jet, 2 on the private plane,
and 7 on the ground. Among those killed was either a California government
official or a San Diego city official.
September 25, 1999:
Stephen Canaday (55), formerly of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, was
killed when the vintage airplane he was riding in crashed into a vacant house in
Nashville, Tennessee. He died on the way to the hospital. Computer software
programmer Rick Loudermilk (52) was
pronounced dead at the scene. The plane was a North American SNJ-5, a World War
II era single-engine training plane.
September 25, 2002: Law professor
Wesley J. Liebeler (71) and his flight
instructor were killed when their plane crashed in Lake Winnipesaukee near
Gilford, New Hampshire during a training flight. Liebeler served as counsel to
the Warren Commission that investigated President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
September 25, 1983:
Jim O'Brien,
sportscaster, weatherman, and news anchor at WPVI-TV in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania died in a skydiving accident while helping a fellow skydiver. While
making a tandem jump on a warm September morning near Pottstown, Pennsylvania,
Jim noticed that another jumper was having trouble opening his chute. During
freefall, Jim was able to untangle the other jumper's parachute allowing him to
drift safely to earth. Unfortunately, by that time it was too late for Jim to
open his own chute so he fell to his death.
September 26, 1969: 25 members of
Bolivian soccer team, The Strongest, died in
the crash of a Douglas DC-6B in the Andes near La Paz, Bolivia. 49 others aboard
the plane were also killed.
September 26, 1999: Fighter pilot
Mark Hanna (40) died in a flying accident at
Sabadell, near Barcelona, Spain. After his successful fighter pilot career,
Hanna founded the Old Flying Machine Company with his father in 1981 to preserve
and maintain vintage aircraft. As a result, he acted as aerial advisor and chief
pilot on many movies featuring vintage aircraft. His movies included Air
America, Empire of the Sun, Memphis Belle, Piece of Cake, Saving Private Ryan,
and Tomorrow Never Dies.
September 27, 1946: English aviator
Geoffrey de Havilland (35), chief test pilot
and son of the aircraft manufacturer, was killed while attempting to become the
first man to break the sound barrier. His single-seat DH-108 Swallow swept-wing
jet broke up in midair while in a dive.
September 30, 1988: Al
Holbert, six-time IMSA champion, died in a plane crash near Columbus, Ohio.
