This is a list of famous people who have died by various forms of aircraft misadventure.

This list is sectioned by type of aircraft. For a list of aviation-related deaths by occupation of the person see the separate list of people who died in aviation-related incidents. There are also lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners.

Airplane crash

• Thomas Selfridge - September 17, 1908 (first man to die in an aircraft accident)
• Charles Rolls - July 12, 1910 (founder of Rolls-Royce, first Englishman to die in an aircraft accident)
• Eugene Ely - October 19, 1911
• Harriet Quimby - July 1, 1912
• Bessie Coleman - April 30, 1926
• Knute Rockne - March 31, 1931
• Will Rogers, Wiley Post - August 15, 1935
• Amelia Earhart - July 2, 1937
• Amy Johnson - January 5, 1941
• Carole Lombard - January 16, 1942
• Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto - April 18, 1943
• Leslie Howard - June 1, 1943
• Wladyslaw Sikorski - July 4, 1943
• Edward O'Hare - November 26, 1943
• Joseph Kennedy, Jr. - August 12, 1944
• Glenn Miller - December 14, 1944
• Admiral Bertram Ramsay - January 2, 1945
• Major Richard I. Bong - August 6, 1945
• Subhash Chandra Bose - August 18, 1945
• Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Westrobothnia - January 26, 1947
• Kathleen Kennedy - May 13, 1947
• 18 AC Torino soccer players, 12 guests (Superga air disaster) - May 4, 1949
• Marcel Cerdan, Ginette Neveu - October 27, 1949
• Jacques Thibaud, September 1, 1953
• Kim Sigler - November 30, 1953
• Wilbur Shaw, October 30, 1954
• Ramon Magsaysay - March 17, 1957
• Busby Babes, 8 players from Manchester United; 15 others - February 6, 1958
• Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens - February 3, 1959 (see also The Day The Music Died)
• Barthelemy Boganda - March 29, 1959
• 16 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo football players, 6 others - October 29, 1960
• Laurence Owen, Bradley Lord , among 18 members of U.S. figure skating team [1] - February 15, 1961
• Dag Hammarskjöld - 18 September, 1961
• Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins , Cowboy Copas - March 5, 1963
• Ken Hubbs - February 13, 1964
• Jim Reeves - July 31, 1964
• Theodore Freeman - October 31, 1964
• Elliott See, Charles Bassett - February 28, 1966
• Otis Redding - December 10, 1967
• Yuri Gagarin - March 27, 1968
• Mohammed bin Laden - May 29, 1968
• Rocky Marciano - August 31, 1969
• 14 Wichita State University football players, 17 staff - October 2, 1970
• 37 Marshall University football players, 6 guests [2] - November 14, 1970
• Audie Murphy - May 28, 1971
• 13 Montevideo rugby players; 16 more die before rescue after 72 days - October 13, 1972
• Lance Reventlow, July 24, 1972
• Roberto Clemente - December 31, 1972
• Jim Croce - September 20, 1973
• Graham Hill - November 29, 1975
• Ronnie VanZant, Steve Gaines - October 20, 1977 (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
• 14 University of Evansville basketball players - December 13, 1977
• Thurman Munson - August 2, 1979
• 14 members of U.S. Olympic boxing team, 8 others - March 14, 1980
• Jaime Roldós Aguilera - May 24, 1981
• Omar Torrijos - July 31, 1981
• Jud Strunk - October 5, 1981
• Stan Rogers - June 2, 1983
• Samantha Smith - August 25, 1985
• Ricky Nelson - December 31, 1985
• Samora Machel - October 9, 1986
• Zia-ul Haq - August 17, 1988
• H. John Heinz III - April 4, 1991
• John Tower - April 5, 1991
• Alan Kulwicki - April 1, 1993
• George S. Mickelson - April 19, 1993
• Zambia national football team - April 28, 1993
• Cyprian Ntayamira - April 6, 1994
• Juvénal Habyarimana - April 6, 1994
• Ron Brown - April 3, 1996
• Jessica Dubroff - April 11, 1996
• Brook Berringer - April 18, 1996
• John Denver - October 12, 1997
• Payne Stewart - October 25, 1999 (Note: The circumstances of this flight indicate that Stewart and the others on board most likely died several hours before their plane crashed.)
• John F. Kennedy Jr. - November 16, 1999
• Mel Carnahan - October 16, 2000
• 2 Oklahoma State University basketball players, 8 staff - January 27, 2001
• Aaliyah - August 25, 2001
• Barbara Olsen, David Angell - September 11, 2001
• Hansie Cronje - June 1, 2002
• Paul Wellstone - October 25, 2002
• Boris Trajkovski - February 26, 2004

Airship crash

• Lord Thomson, 1930, British Secretary of State for Air, in the R101 disaster

Balloon crash

• Maxie Anderson - June 27, 1983

Helicopter accident

• Vic Morrow - July 23, 1982

Helicopter crash

• Francis Gary Powers - August 1, 1977
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - August 27, 1990
• Marie Rossi - March 1, 1991
• Bill Graham - October 25, 1991
• Davey Allison - July 13, 1993
• Svyatoslav Fyodorov - July 2, 2000
• Alexander Lebed - April 28, 2002

See also

• Lists of people by cause of death
• List of people who died in aviation-related incidents
• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• List of space disasters
• Air safety