Fatal Flights of the Rich and Famous

Fame and fate intersect as aviation legends reveal perilous legacies and unfathomable risks.

Everyone loves adventure, mystery and the notion of celebrity and this book combines all of these with new unpublished material, supported by high quality previously unpublished images. Aviation history is full of evocative stories about the evolution of aeroplanes; flying and the perils of air travel and there are many ways of looking at these. The theme of this book is to recall some of those perils through the eyes of twenty-three internationally-famous celebrity air travellers between 1919 and 2020. What brings them all together here is that, as well as presenting the personalities, the stories showcase aeroplanes from the golden age of biplanes to helicopters, biz-jets and airliners. They also illustrate the fallibility of people and technology, while giving a flavour of the social progress of air transport over the past 100 years. Sadly, the climax of these particular stories culminates in air crashes that took the lives of the celebrities involved. While the final selection of the stars might be open to debate, the breadth of celebrity representation in these stories is very wide, being drawn from the fields of aeronautics; cinema; exploration; fashion; music; politics and sport. Mysteries and myths have grown up around some of these incidents and while some of these can be debunked, others will pose unanswered questions. All, though, will demonstrate that Fame and Fortune alone are no protection from Fate.