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Famous people and small craft accidents: Why?!?
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Famous people and small craft accidents: Why?!? What is it with famous people that makes them think they are invincible? This question popped into my mind again after two recent fatal small boat and aircraft accidents: On August 28, Ice Road Truckers star (seasons 6-10) Darrell Ward and his pilot were killed when their brand new Cessna 182 aircraft crashed on the shoulder of Interstate 90 while attempting to land at a small airstrip near Clinton, Montana. He was returning from a truckers convention in Dallas to begin work on a new series about plane accident investigations. The 52-year-old Ward left behind a wife, two grown (including his Reno, featured in IRT season 8 ), and a business partner (Lisa Kelly) who has some important decisions to make before IRT season 11 filming kicks off in a few months. Just this past Sunday, September 25, Miami Marlins rising star pitcher José Fernández, aged 24, and two friends died when their small boat crashed into a jetty off Miami Beach, no life jackets worn. Fernández left behind a pregnant girlfriend. (And as we now know, they were drinking.) Why?!? Why is God allowing these good men to die while allowing so many evil ones to continue to prosper? These are, of course, not the first small craft accidents to claim famous people. Just to name three that come to mind: February 3, 1959 is perhaps the most famous one, just outside Clear Lake, Iowa: "The Day the Music Died", when Buddy Holly (22), Ritchie Valens (17) and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson, 27) and their pilot died while flying on to their next winter caravan tour stop in Fargo. Future country star Waylon Jennings, playing bass with Holly's band at the time, accepted a deal from Richardson so J.P. could get to Fargo with Buddy. Holly's other band member, guitarist Tommy Allsup lost the coin flip with Valens, and also waited with the others for the tour bus heater to be repaired. Holly left a widow and unborn (miscarried shortly thereafter), Richardson left a widow, , and unborn (J.P. Jr.), and Valens left behind a girlfriend forever immortalized in song ("Donna"). October 1999, another tragic small plane crash claims golfer Payne Stewart, two agents, and a course designer working for golf legend Jack Nicklaus plus the two pilots when a malfunction causes the jet to depressurize at altitude, and the jet flies on until it crashes near Aberdeen, South Dakota. And another small boating accident involving baseball pitchers in Florida happened back in March 1993, killing Cleveland Indians pitchers Steve Olin (27) and Tim Crews (31), and injuring fellow Indians pitcher Bobby Ojeda when Crews hit a small dock during dusk hours on Little Lake Nellie in Clermont, Florida. Of course, two other small plane crashes of note: Jim Croce in September 1973, and Aaliyah in August 2001; and that freak tragic car accident that killed Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes from TLC in Honduras in April 2002. What about JFK Jr. in July 1999, flying in dense fog conditions he was never trained to handle while approaching an airport that gives even the most experienced pilots grief due to frequent fog, a crash also claiming his wife and sister-in-law... And composer James Horner (Star Trek II/III, Titanic, Avatar) in June 2015, apparently too busy thinking of his next musical score to properly fly the plane... One of a number of Trek deaths in 2015, but the only one by small craft. When are we going to see terms written into their contracts forbidding dangerous activities (or at least ensuring all safety protocols are followed)? These were not experimental craft like the Long-EZ that John Denver died in while piloting on October 12, 1997. The only question we can ask is Why?!? |
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Why oh why?!?
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Life in the fast lane. People are strange when you're a stranger."
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9/29/2016 8:26 am |
Many people die in small craft accidents every day, but not being famous, the news media doesn't care! It's a well known fact that fame and fortune, especially at a young age, makes people careless! That doesn't make it any easier to accept, it's just a fact!
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actually a lot of professional sports people do have clauses forbidding dangerous activities....not sure about artists or singers though
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I used an example that I thought would best illustrate the debate. I apologize if I missed the point there. You are correct that the others who were killed during the 60s civil rights movement did not deserve it either, or those murdered (or attempted) by crazy people like Manson, Chapman, Hinckley, etc. I am certain that a lot of Jewish families would be glad if Hitler and his ilk had not decided to wipe out their relatives, and wondered why God didn't put a stronger obstacle in his way to prevent it. All that has gone on with the BLM people attacking and killing cops anytime a black person is killed by a cop (black or white), and using such events to demand the cops allow themselves to be killed while the black criminals, whom they, for some strange reason, seem to think are angels and completely innocent, get away with it? The fiction of "hands up, don't shoot" has already been exposed, and I am stunned that Jackson and Sharpton are continuing such agitations, Baltimore, NYC, MSP, Dallas, Charlotte... Who's next? Where and when are people going to THINK before doing something incredibly dumb? MLK's dream was for all people, and you see it as I do that his dream group cannot be realized while any group demands lenient treatment to the exclusion of all others. 
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