What musicians died in airplane crashes?

Answer 1

Quite a few- the most famous incidents are those of Big Band leader Glenn Miller, whose 'plane disappeared over the English Channel during WW2 in 1944, and also the crash in February 1959 that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson, nicknamed 'The Big Bopper'. It has been known ever since as 'The Day the Music Died' (though don't confuse the 1973 tribute song 'American Pie' by Don McLean to be about this- the song instead is referring to the death of President Kennedy). Other musician deaths include romantic country singer Patsy Cline in 1963, Otis Redding in 1967 (just 3 days after he released his hit 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay'), Jim Croce in 1973, three members of the band Lynyrd Skynrd in 1977, Randy Rhodes of Ozzy Osbourne's band in 1982 (in a light aircraft- he was fooling around with the controls whilst pretending to 'buzz' the house that Osbourne was staying in), Rickie Nelson and his band in 1985 (when the old Douglas Dakota they had chartered caught fire), blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan in a helicopter crash in 1990, all of the band of country & Western singer Reba MacIntyre in 1991, John Denver in 1997 when the experimental light aircraft he was flying went out of control and plunged into the sea off the West Coast of the USA, actress and r & b singer Aaliyah Haughton in 2001 when her plane went down after taking off from the Bahamas due to being overloaded, and Mexican-American singer Jenni Riviera in a light aircraft crash in 2012- composer James Horner, who wrote the scores for the film 'Titanic' and other famous movies, was also killed in an air crash the same year. Bryan Ferry, formerly of Roxy Music, had a narrow escape when the airliner he was travelling in to South Africa suddenly lost altitude due to a temporary technical fault and plunged for 12,000 feet before it was brought back under control again- he was terrified and thought that he and his family were going to die. As far as I know there haven't been any famous classical musicians or composers who have been killed in air crashes, but don't quote me on this- you can check on it by looking it up on Google.