Celebrities who died in plane crashes

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, at the age of 41.

The late NBA star died alongside his daughter, 13-year-old daughter Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant, and seven others whilst traveling to a basketball training session in California.

The pair's death certificates listed their cause of death as blunt force trauma. They were laid to rest in a private funeral in California, followed by a wider, public memorial service at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Buddy Holly's death has been immortalized by Don McLean's song "American Pie" in which he sings about "the day that music died", referring to the plane crash on February 3, 1959, which killed Buddy, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson.

Shortly after taking off from the airport in Clear Lake, Iowa, after finishing a leg of the Winter Dance Party tour, the single-engine plane encountered bad weather on a flight to Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed in a cornfield.

An investigation found that 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson's "inexperience" led to the crash as he was only certified for Visual Flight Rules, or clear weather, not Instrument Flight Rules, flying in clouds.

Singer Aaliyah was just 22 when she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas after filming her music video Rock the Boat on August 25, 2001.

The small twin-engine Cessna 402B she was traveling in crashed shortly after take-off, killing Aaliyah and five others instantly; three other passengers died of their injuries the next day.

Aaliyah's official cause of death included "severe burns and a blow to the head".

Investigations into the crash concluded that the plane was 700 pounds overloaded, the pilot, Luis Antonio Morales, had "cocaine in his urine and traces of alcohol in his stomach", and he was not certified to fly the Cessna 402B.

Otis Redding died just three days after recording his hit song (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay. He was just 26.

The singer and four members of his band died on December 10, 1967, when their chartered plane crashed into Lake Monona in Maddison, Wisconsin, after traveling from Cleveland, Ohio.

The exact cause of the crash remains undetermined.

Country singer Patsy Cline died at age 30 on March 5, 1963, after the plane she was traveling in crashed while flying back to Nashville from a show in Kansas City, Kansas.

Three others died alongside her, including her manager Ramsey 'Randy' Dorris Hughes – who was also the pilot – and musicians Harold Franklin 'Hankshaw' Hawkins and Llody Estel 'Cowboy' Copas.

Bad weather made it a difficult trip before the plane crashed in the countryside about 75 miles west of Nashville. The accident investigators blamed pilot error.

President John F. Kennedy's only son, John F. Kennedy Jr. died aged 38 when the small plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard on July 16, 1999.

His wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette also died in the crash.

An investigation by the NTSB blamed "the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was the result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night".

Their bodies were found five days later at the bottom of the ocean less than 10 miles off the coast of Massachusetts.