Date/Time | Name / Group | Age | Notability | Accident Location | Aircraft | Details | Notes |
Jul 4, 1920 |
Jaime González Grocier |
28 | Famous Cuban aviator | Havana, Cuba | Blériot XI Monoplane | Grocier was killed piloting this plane when it stalled during takeoff and fell to the ground. This were the first recorded civil airplane fatalities in Cuba. | |
Aug 2, 1920 22:00 |
Milton 'Skeets' Elliott Ormer ocklear |
24 27 |
Stunt flyers | Los Angeles, California | Died in a crash during the filming of The Skywayman at De Mille Airfield. He was not able to pull out of a dive after the crew forgot to cut the lights and he was blinded and wasn't able to see the ground in time. | PHOTO | |
Jul 4, 1922 |
Lothar von Richthofen |
27 | World War I ace and brother of Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron). | Fuhlsbuttel, Germany | LVG C VI | While taking off the plane lost it's engine and crashed into trees. Two of 3 aboard killed. | |
Oct 21, 1925 | Marvin Goodwin |
33 | Baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds | Houston, Texas | Military plane | Crashed his plane on a training flight while a member of the Army Air Corps. The engine failed and the plane went into a tail spin. | PHOTO |
Apr 30, 1926 | Bessie Coleman |
30 | African-American pioneer female aviator | Jacksonville, Florida | Curtiss JN-4 Jenny Trainer | First African-American woman pilot. Also known as "Queen Bessie" she was practicing for an air show when she was thrown from the plane and fell to her death. A wrench left by mechanic William Wills, who was piloting the plane, become stuck in the control gears which caused him to lose control of the aircraft. | PHOTO |
Jan 26, 1928 | Earl Metcalfe |
38 | American actor | Burbank, California | Jumped or fell 2,000 feet from an airplane during his forth flying lesson after the plane went into a double roll. | PHOTO | |
Mar 13, 1928 | Elsie Mackay | 35 | British actress, aviation pioneer | Atlantic ocean | Stinson Detrotier | Was killed while attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean with Captain Walter Hinchliffe. | PHOTO |
May 1, 1928 | Thaddeus C. Sweet |
55 | New York U.S. Rep. | Whitney Point, New York | Curtiss military plane |
Sweet was on the way to give a speech in Oswego County, N.Y. While landing in a field to escape a thunder storm, uneven ground caused the plane to flip over killing Sweet. The pilot survived. | PHOTO |
Jun 22, 1928 |
Roald Amundsen |
56 | Norwegian explorer | Norwegian Sea | Latham | Lost at sea while attempting to fly a rescue mission to the airship Italia stranded in the Arctic. All 6 aboard were killed. | PHOTO |
Jul 4, 1928 | Alfred Lowenstein |
50 | Belgian businessman and entrepreneur | Over the English Channel | Fokker F. VII Trimotor | While flying on his private plane across the English Channel, Lowenstein went to the rear of the plane to use the lavatory. After a noticeable length of time passed, one of his employees went to check on him and found that he had vanished through the plane's rear door and had plunged several thousand feet to his death. It is speculated he committed suicide. | PHOTO |
July 12, 1928 16:00 |
Emilio Carranza | 22 | Mexican aviation pioneer | Sandy Ridge, New Jersey | Excelsior | Killed when his plane flew into a thunderstorm during a goodwill flight from New York to Mexico City. | |
Nov 9, 1929 | Carl Ben Eielsen |
32 | American aviation pioneer and explorer | North Cape, Siberia | Died alongside his mechanic Earl Borland in an air crash while attempting to rescue 15 passengers of the Nanuk, a cargo vessel trapped in the ice at North Cape. | ||
Dec 20, 1929 | Will Kirk Kaynor |
45 | Massachusetts U.S. Rep. | Near Washington D.C. |
Military plane | Killed in a military plane crash at Boling Field air base. It was his first time in an airplane. | PHOTO |