When Private Planes Go Wrong - YouTube

Number 8 Oxford, USA, 2019 Aspiring pilot Elizabeth  

“Lake” Little was logging a solo flight in her  home state of Mississippi from Golden Triangle  

Regional Airport to University-Oxford Airport, in  July of 2019. She was practicing “Touch and Go”  

landing for her license. Over an hour had passed,  without incident, until the final moments when she  

was forced to abort the landing after approaching  from the wrong direction. Evident panic  

streamed from her voice as she radioed with  the control tower, but there was nothing they  

could do as her plane took a nose-dive into a  neighboring golf course. Preliminary reports  

weren’t clear as to what had caused the crash, but  flight instructor Robert Katz believed it could  

have been avoided and blamed poor training. Little  was trying to land the Cessna 172 with a tailwind,  

while experienced pilots of small aircrafts'  know to go against the wind to control speed.  

In addition, the wing flaps, used during landing  and takeoff to supply lift, were retracted,  

potentially explaining the plane’s sudden,  and fatal downward trajectory. She survived  

the initial crash, but suffered severe burns  and succumbed to her injuries later that day.   

Number 7 Channel of Alderney, 2019 In January of 2019, Emiliano Sala,  

a professional soccer player from Argentina,  signed a new contract to play for Cardiff City,  

from Nantes FC, with a club-record transfer fee  of an estimated 15 million pounds. Two days after  

signing, on January the 21st, he boarded a plane  to make his move official, never to be seen alive  

again. The Piper PA-46 Malibu plane went off the  radar just north of the island of Guernsey, UK,  

and wasn’t relocated for another 13 days. It  was eventually found at a depth of 220 feet,  

in the English Channel of Alderney. Sala’s  body was still amongst the wreckage, while  

David Ibbotson’s, the pilot, was never found.  Sala himself had identified potential red flags.  

Before takeoff, he sent a voice message to a  friend saying “I am now on board a plane that  

seems like it is falling to pieces... If you do  not have any more news in an hour and a half,  

I don't know if they need to send someone to  find me. I am getting scared!" The plane then  

crashed after breaking apart mid-flight.  It was later revealed that the pilot was  

crucially underqualified and inexperienced  to fly the aircraft, especially at night  

and in poor conditions. A faulty exhaust  pipe might have caused carbon monoxide  

poisoning in both occupants but, ultimately,  the aircraft fell apart due to flying at a  

speed significantly faster than designed to. In  June of that same year, a man was arrested on  

suspicion of manslaughter in connection to the  crash but was released with no further action.  

In the aftermath, Cardiff FC and Nantes FC  reportedly argued over Sala’s transfer fee. 

Number 6 Martha’s Vineyard, USA, 1999 John F. Kennedy Jr. was taking his wife, Carolyn,  

and his sister-in-law Lauren Bassette, from  Fairfield, New Jersey, to Hyannis Port,  

Massachusetts, on July the 16th of 1999, for his  nephew’s wedding. Flying in his Piper Saratoga  

aircraft they followed the coastline, intending  to drop Lauren off at Martha’s Vineyard. However,  

after checking in with air traffic control  earlier, they failed to show up. The US coast  

guard started an official search and rescue at  4 AM, hours after Kennedy’s scheduled arrival.  

They were not optimistic as several pieces of the  plane had been seen littered across the coastline.  

Six days later, on the afternoon of July the 21st,  the wreckage, and all three bodies were found  

still strapped into their seats under and around  the fuselage. There were no navigational or  

mechanical issues discovered and the final report  determined the cause to be pilot inexperience and  

loss of control, despite Kennedy having over  300 logged hours. Although it was a foggy and  

hazy night, Kennedy had turned down the offer  of one of his instructors coming along to help,  

insisting he could manage alone. It’s suspected  that, in conditions of low visibility,  

he lost sight of the horizon and became  disorientated. He would have had to rely  

completely upon his instruments, a skill not  yet mastered. Radar showed the plane plummeting  

1,100 feet in 14 seconds before disappearing. Kennedy Jr, who was known for his charming  

good looks and being the “crown prince” of  one of America’s most esteemed families,  

was mourned by many.  Number 5 Abaco Islands, Bahamas, 2001 

August the 25th of 2001, famous Miami-born singer  and actress Aaliyah boarded a twin-engine Cessna  

402 aircraft destined for Florida. Three days  prior, she had jetted off to the Bahamas to shoot  

an exclusive music video for her upcoming song  “Rock the Boat”. Finishing her scenes a day early,  

Aaliyah, and an entourage of 7, decided to  charter a flight back to Miami before the rest  

of the production crew. Emotions were high as the  aircraft arrived almost 2 hours late. Impatient to  

take to the sky, the aircraft was loaded and set  to take off, something it would never achieve.  

The plane crashed just 200 feet from takeoff,  killing everyone on board. Only certified to carry  

6 passengers, the flight was taking 8, all with  equipment, meaning it was doomed from the start.  

Shockingly overlooked, the pilot was not qualified  to fly the plane, had falsified documents, and his  

autopsy revealed traces of cocaine and alcohol  in his system. There are reports that Aaliyah had  

expressed concern about the safety of flying  in and out of the Bahamas to her boyfriend,  

who’d advised her not to travel. There are also  reports of overheard arguments between passengers  

and the pilot about weight concern with the pilot  advising not to fly and passengers pushing to  

continue. Aaliyah was only 22 and one of the  most famous people in the world at the time. 

Number 4 Scottsdale, USA, 2018 On April the 9th of 2018, 6 people lost  

their lives in a ball of fiery wreckage after the  single-engine Piper PA-24 Comanche plane they were  

in failed to maintain sufficient airspeed after  takeoff. The plane belonged to student pilot James  

Pedroza, but it’s unclear whether he was the one  flying the plane as he was joined by Erik Valente,  

an experienced pilot and instructor. The four  remaining passengers were Mariah Sunshine Coogan,  

Anand Patel, Helena Lagos, and Iris Rodriguez  Garcia, who were all budding Instagram stars  

and models with thousands of followers each.  Although confirming everything to be “all good” to  

air traffic control moments before, their flight  from Phoenix to Las Vegas ended only 70 seconds  

after takeoff as they hurtled to the ground  in Scottsdale, Arizona. Evidence of cocaine  

and ecstasy were found in James Pedroza’s  blood, but it was impossible to time stamp  

if it had been ingested before or during the  flight. A broken spring from a cylinder valve  

was also discovered, but the main cause was  concluded to have been the aircraft being 135  

pounds overweight and off balance. Number 3 Columbus, USA, 2008 

Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Adam “DJ  AM” Goldstein were trying to fly from Columbus,  

South Carolina to Los Angeles, California on  September the 19th of 2008 but never made it  

off the ground. While speeding along the  runway, one of the plane’s wheels burst,  

and the pilot was forced to abort the takeoff.  With one tire out, the plane was out of control,  

it veered back and forth and ran off the runway  into a nearby highway before finally crashing into  

an embankment. It burst into flames immediately  and 4 people were killed. Barker and Goldstein  

were able to jump out of the emergency exit  before it crashed, escaping with their lives.  

Travis jumped out right into a spray of jet  fuel, covering himself. Running and ripping  

off his clothes in the middle of the highway,  he finally dropped and rolled, killing the fire,  

but not before it covered 65% of his body with  third-degree burns. He spent 11 weeks in hospital  

and said he’d swallowed so much fuel that he was  “burping up jet fuel for almost 3 months”. The  

mental toll was arguably as bad as the physical.  Goldstein, unfortunately, died in an overdose just  

a year later and Barker was diagnosed with PTSD.  He has never set foot on a plane again since.

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Number 2 Lyon Township, 2021 

On January the 2nd of 2021, a small private plane  carrying a family of 3 crashed into a house in  

Lyon Township, a suburb of Detroit, killing all  occupants. The plane crashed into the living  

room of the house and quickly set the whole place  ablaze. Miraculously, everyone at the residence,  

except the family cat, survived unscathed  despite being home at the time. David Compo,  

the owner of the single-engine Piper PA-24 was  an experienced pilot taking his family home  

after a visit to Georgia. They were cleared to  start their descent into Willow Run Airport,  

in Ypsilanti, and were assured by air traffic  control that they could always land at another  

nearby airport if necessary. David Campo was  not “instrument-rated” in poor weather and it  

was the dead of winter, but he decided to give it  a shot anyway. The plane descended to 1,900 feet,  

before violently spiraling to the left multiple  times and crashing a half-mile from the runway. 

Number 1 Oahu, USA, 2019 The most deadly US civil aviation accident of the  

last decade was a skydiving plane crash in 2019  in Hawaii resulting in the death of 11 people.  

Everyone was quick to blame the pilot, Jerome  Renck, who was known to be an aggressive flier. In  

the past, Renck would try maneuvers far beyond his  training as an extra thrill ride for customers.  

One of these maneuvers was to pitch at a steep  angle and climb aggressively right after takeoff.  

In June, the Beech King Air 65-A-90 aircraft was  seen aggressively taking off before stalling and  

fatally crashing. The U.S National Transportation  Safety Board reported that the stall and  

subsequent loss of control were at too low of  an altitude for Renck to have recovered from,  

but they weren’t quick to point blame. The  report didn’t name any single cause for the crash  

as investigations found other factors that had  potentially contributed. For one, the skydiving  

company, Oahu Parachute Centre, didn’t even hold  the right permits to legally take people out.  

George Rivera, the company owner, was granted  a permit for parachute repairs and riggings,  

back in 2010, but it was under a different company  name. It was also found that the aircraft had  

been in a stall and spin incident, in 2016, in  which skydivers had to preemptively jump out.  

The left-wing was damaged and never adequately  repaired, negatively impacting its mid-air  

stall margin. The investigation brought to  light the disappointing regulatory standards  

of the Federal Aviation Administration and  its general unawareness of subsequent subpar  

training given to pilots. Thanks for watching! Would  

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