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Retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was believed to be aboard the plane that crashed outside charlotteNorth Carolina, on Thursday, killing all seven people aboard. He joins a grim list of athletes to die in plane or helicopter crashes, including fellow race car drivers Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison, who died in separate crashes in 1993. Here are some sports celebrities who died in aviation accidents:
alan kulwicki
The Wisconsin native was NASCAR’s 1986 Rookie of the Year, In 1992 he became the first Northerner and the first college graduate to win a drivers’ championship, passing Bill Elliott in the standings, which was the closest finish in the circuit’s history at the time. Kulwicki, 38, two Hooters executives, their sponsor and the pilot died when their small jet crashed while landing in Tennessee in April 1993. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the pilot failed to remove ice from the engine inlet.
davy ellison
The son of 1992 Daytona 500 winner and ’83 Cup champion Bobby Allison is a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame like his father. The younger Ellison was piloting a helicopter that crashed on the grounds of Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway. The NTSB investigation blamed the 32-year-old pilot’s inexperience for the July 1993 crash.
After the 1993 season, Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace completed the “Polish Victory Lap” – Kulwicki’s celebration in which they circled the track clockwise – holding flags bearing the numbers of the two deceased drivers.
payne stewart
The winner of three major tournaments and the reigning US Open champion, Stewart died in 1999 when his private plane lost cabin pressure, killing all four passengers and both pilots. The plane, which was to take them to the season-ending tournament in Dallas, continued on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a field in South Dakota. He was 42 years old.
The PGA Tour presents an award in his name to the golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s character, sportsmanship and commitment to charity.
Roberto Clemente
The Pittsburgh right fielder and humanitarian was bringing emergency supplies to survivors of the Nicaragua earthquake when his overloaded and poorly maintained plane crashed while taking off from Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve in 1972.
At age 38, he was a 15-time All-Star, four-time National League regular season batting champion and the 1966 NL MVP, leading the Pirates to two World Series titles. The Baseball Hall of Fame waived his five-year eligibility waiting period to allow him to be inducted the following summer. Major League Baseball named its award for character and sportsmanship after him.
Thurman Munson
The 1970 AL Rookie of the Year and the league’s 1976 Most Valuable Player was the first team captain since New York Yankees catcher Lou Gehrig. After purchasing a plane so he could fly home to his family in Ohio over the holidays, Munson was practicing landings when he hit a tree near Akron-Canton Regional Airport. The two other people aboard survived the 1979 crash, but the 32-year-old ballplayer was paralyzed on impact and suffocated by the fire.
Emiliano Sala
The Argentine striker was top scorer for Nantes in three consecutive Ligue 1 seasons before he was sent to Cardiff City for a £15 million ($19 million) transfer fee. He was on his way to his new team when his plane crashed in the English Channel in 2019. The 28-year-old brother-in-law was found three weeks later.
Kobe Bryant
five times nba Champion, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and 2018 Academy Award winner, was traveling with her 13-year-old daughter and seven others to a girls basketball tournament when her helicopter crashed outside Los Angeles in January 2020. He was 41 years old.
The Lakers retired both numbers he wore during a career in which he was the team’s all-time leading scorer. The NBA named its All-Star Game MVP award after her, and the WNBA presents the Kobe and Gigi Bryant Advocacy Award for contributions to women’s and girls’ basketball.
Rocky Marciano
The only world heavyweight champion to retire undefeated, Marciano held the title from 1952–56. After his boxing career he became a celebrity and an Italian-American icon, appearing in films and television and becoming a friend of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He died at the age of 45 in August 1969 when an inexperienced pilot crashed into a tree in bad weather three miles from an Iowa airfield. The title character in Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” franchise was partly inspired by Marciano.
Roy Halladay
The Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies All-Star was a two-time Cy Young Award winner who pitched a perfect game in the 2010 regular season and a no-hitter in the postseason. He was 40 in 2017 when a sport plane he had purchased a month earlier crashed in the Gulf of Mexico. The NTSB found that he was impaired by high levels of amphetamines and was attempting extreme aerobic stunts when he lost control of the plane.