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Flights To Eternity: Those Who Took Final Bow In Helicopter Crashes

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Helicopter crashes have taken the lives of thousands of people including high-profile personalities over the decades.

Though it is not as frequent as road crashes, its effect can be very devastating given aircraft altitude to the ground. In most cases, passengers hardly survive the deadly accidents.

World leaders on Monday joined Iranians in mourning the death of President Ebrahim Raisi whose helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountain on Sunday.

Raisi, 63; his foreign minister and seven others died when the aircraft went down in a remote area of northwestern Iran, where the wreckage was only found on Monday morning. They were all confirmed dead by state authorities.

The latest helicopter crash in Iran happens to be one of the most recent aircraft accidents widely reported.

It is coming in about three months after the death of a former Group Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings Plc, Herbert Wigwe who died in a helicopter crash that took place in the United States in February. Wigwe’s death sparked concerns across the globe.

The CEO, his wife and son, as well as a former group chairman of Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, Abimbola Ogunbanjo, died in the crash in California.

Also, Chile’s former President Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire tycoon, died in a helicopter crash on February 6, 2024.

An Aljazeera report said Chile’s Interior Minister, Carolina Toha, confirmed the death of the former president but did not give details.

Chile’s national disaster agency SENAPRAD confirmed that three people were also injured.

In January 2020, United States basketball legend, Kobe Bryant, and his daughter, Gianna, were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in the city of Calabasas, also in California.

Bryant, 41, and Gianna, 13, were travelling in a private helicopter when it went down and burst into flames, according to a report by BBC. The county sheriff said there were no survivors.

Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, played for the LA Lakers throughout his career and was considered one of the greatest players in the game’s history.

A former owner of Leicester City FC, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, also died when his helicopter crashed outside the stadium, according to his club which confirmed the incident.

The billionaire, two members of his staff, the pilot and a passenger were killed when the aircraft spiralled out of control and crashed in a fireball on October 28, 2018.

It had just cleared the King Power Stadium when it came down around 8:30pm.

A former Governor of Kaduna State, Patrick Yakowa, was killed in a helicopter crash along with other senior officials on December 15, 2012.

Yakowa and a former national security adviser, Gen. Owoye Azazi, were on the helicopter that came down in Bayelsa.

Between 1989 and 2024, over 1000 fatalities have been recorded in Nigeria in over 70 plane crashes, according to data from Geneva-based Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives retrieved from its website on Wednesday.

The Bureau noted that the worst plane crash happened in Nigeria on June 3, 2012, when 159 persons were killed.

Mechanical failure and pilot error were blamed for the 2012 air crash, according to accident investigators in a report published in 2017, five years after the incident.

A Boeing MD-83 aircraft was carrying 153 passengers and crew when it crashed into a densely-populated area in the north of Lagos and burst into flames. Six people were killed on the ground.

The Accident Investigation Bureau said two engines on the doomed Dana Air flight from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, failed mid-air before it crashed on approach to Lagos airport.

“Engine number one lost power 17 minutes into the flight, and thereafter on final approach, engine number two lost power and failed to respond to throttle movement on demand for increased power to sustain the aircraft in its flight configuration,” the report stated.

The “inappropriate omission of the use of the checklist and the crew’s inability to appreciate the severity of the power-related problem, and their subsequent failure to land at the nearest suitable airfield” also contributed to the crash, it added.

Associated Press also highlighted helicopter crashes in other countries that dated from 1977.

On August 1, 1977, a pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, Francis Gary Powers, was killed when the KNBC-TV news helicopter he was piloting ran out of fuel and crashed near Encino, California.

On July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow, star of the ABC series “Combat!” and child actors Myca Dinh and Renee Chen were killed on the ground when a helicopter crashed into them on the set of “Twilight Zone: The Movie” in Indian Dunes, California.

A helicopter carrying guitarist, singer and songwriter Stevie Vaughan slammed into a hillside in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, after an outdoor concert, killing Vaughan and all four others onboard on August 27, 1990, AP reported.

On October 25, 1991, Rock concert promoter Bill Graham and two other people died when their helicopter hit a utility tower and crashed near Vallejo, California.

Also, Davey Allison, who was the 1992 Daytona 500 winner, died on July 13, 1993, after a helicopter he was piloting crashed at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.

On September 17, 2017, Troy Gentry, who was part of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, was killed in a helicopter crash in Medford, New Jersey.

Helicopter crashes raise critical questions about safety measures, the role of weather conditions and risk mitigation strategies.

At the heart of some of the helicopter crashes could also be mechanical failures capable of compromising the integrity of these aerial vehicles.

Recall that in April the family of the late Chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group, Abimbola Ogunbanjo, who died in the helicopter crash alongside Wigwe, filed a lawsuit against the US helicopter company.

The Ogunbanjo family stated that the flight should have been grounded because of treacherous weather.

One of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit, Andrew Robb, noted that Ogunbanjo’s family were seeking “answers and accountability.”

“Helicopters do not do very well in snow and ice,” Robb told Associated Press. “This flight was entirely preventable, and we don’t know why they took off,” he added.

The US National Transportation Safety Board had confirmed that law enforcement and witnesses observed the helicopter transporting Wigwe engulfed in flames before it crashed.

In its report on the crash, the Board added that witnesses also reported the weather conditions in the area were “not good” and raining with a snow mix.

In Iran, pictures from the site of Raisi’s helicopter crash indicated poor weather conditions as the atmosphere was filled with fog that even made rescue officials find it difficult to get to the crash site in time.

Meanwhile, some reports raised questions about the mechanical condition of the helicopter that transported Raisi and other officials.

According to Aljazeera, the US-manufactured chopper – Two-blade Bell 212, that Raisi was travelling on, is believed to have been decades old.

The media house cited foreign sanctions on Iran which dated back to 1979 over its nuclear programme and anti-US stance.

This, it gathered, made it difficult for the country to obtain aircraft parts or new aircraft thereby frustrating the maintenance of old ones.

Since the first US sanctions on Iran 45 years ago, the Iranian economy has continued to take hits, and its airlines have in particular been impacted, the report published Monday stated.

Between 1979 and 2024, Iran plane crashes have killed over 2000 people in over 70 accidents, according to data from the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives retrieved from its website on Wednesday.

The worst aircraft accident in the country was in 1988 in which 290 fatalities were recorded.

On August 10, 2014, BBC reported that at least 38 people were killed when a small passenger plane crashed near the Iranian capital, Tehran.

The aircraft, which was heading to the eastern city of Tabas, went down after take-off in a residential area near Mehrabad airport on a Sunday morning.

The passengers included at least five children, according to the aviation authority.

Initial reports said all passengers on board the plane had been killed, but state media later reported that some passengers had been injured and transferred to hospital.

The report further highlighted that Iran had suffered a series of plane crashes, blamed on its ageing aircraft and poor maintenance record.

Source: PUNCH

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Headline

Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Is Dead

Published

11 hours ago

September 23, 2025

Editor

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz, has died at the age of 82.

According to a statement from the Royal Court, the revered cleric passed away on Tuesday morning.

Born in Mecca in November 1943, Sheikh Abdulaziz rose to become one of the most influential religious authorities in the Kingdom.

He served as head of the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta, as well as the Supreme Council of the Muslim World League.

Headline

Antitrust Trial: US Asks Court To Break Up Google’s Ad Business

Published

2 days ago

September 22, 2025

Editor

Google faces a fresh federal court test on Monday as US government lawyers ask a judge to order the breakup of the search engine giant’s ad technology business.

The lawsuit is Google’s second such test this year, following a similar government demand to split up its empire that was shot down by a judge earlier this month.

Monday’s case focuses specifically on Google’s ad tech “stack” — the tools that website publishers use to sell ads and that advertisers use to buy them.

In a landmark decision earlier this year, Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that Google maintained an illegal grip on this market.

Monday’s trial is set to determine what penalties and changes Google must implement to undo its monopoly.

According to filings, the US government will argue that Google should spin off its ad publisher and exchange operations. The DOJ will also ask that after the divestitures are complete, Google be banned from operating an ad exchange for 10 years.

Google will argue that the divestiture demands go far beyond the court’s findings, are technically unfeasible, and would be harmful to the market and smaller businesses.

“We’ve said from the start that DOJ’s case misunderstands how digital advertising works and ignores how the landscape has dramatically evolved, with increasing competition and new entrants,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs.

In a similar case in Europe, the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust enforcer, earlier this month fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.47 billion) over its control of the ad tech market.

Brussels ordered behavioral changes, drawing criticism that it was going easy on Google as it had previously indicated that a divestiture may be necessary.

This remedy phase of the US trial follows a first trial that found Google operated an illegal monopoly. It is expected to last about a week, with the court set to meet again for closing arguments a few weeks later.

The trial begins in the same month that a separate judge rejected a government demand that Google divest its Chrome browser, in an opinion that was largely seen as a victory for the tech giant.

That was part of a different case, also brought by the US Department of Justice, in which the tech giant was found responsible for operating an illegal monopoly, this time in the online search space.

Instead of a major breakup of its business, Google was required to share data with rivals as part of its remedies.

The US government had pushed for Chrome’s divestment, arguing the browser serves as a crucial gateway to the internet that brings in a third of all Google web searches.

Shares in Google-parent Alphabet have skyrocketed by more than 20 percent since that decision.

Judge Brinkema has said in pre-trial hearings that she will closely examine the outcome of the search trial when assessing her path forward in her own case.

These cases are part of a broader bipartisan government campaign against the world’s largest technology companies. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against such companies.

AFP

Headline

Google Faces Court Battle Over Breakup Of Ad Tech Business

Published

2 days ago

September 22, 2025

Editor

Google faces a fresh federal court test on Monday as US government lawyers ask a judge to order the breakup of the search engine giant’s ad technology business.

The lawsuit is Google’s second such test this year after the California-based tech juggernaut saw a similar government demand to split up its empire shot down by a judge earlier this month.

Monday’s case focuses specifically on Google’s ad tech “stack” — the tools that website publishers use to sell ads and that advertisers use to buy them.

In a landmark decision earlier this year, Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that Google maintained an illegal grip on this market.
Monday’s trial is set to determine what penalties and changes Google must implement to undo its monopoly.

Google will argue that the divestiture demands go far beyond the court’s findings, are technically unfeasible, and would be harmful to the market and smaller businesses.

In a similar case in Europe, the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust enforcer, earlier this month fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.47 billion) over its control of the ad tech market.
Brussels ordered behavioral changes, drawing criticism that it was going easy on Google as it had previously indicated that a divestiture may be necessary.

The trial begins in the same month that a separate judge rejected a government demand that Google divest its Chrome browser, in an opinion that was largely seen as a victory for the tech giant.

That was part of a different case, also brought by the US Department of Justice, in which the tech giant was found responsible for operating an illegal monopoly, this time in the online search space.
Instead of a major breakup of its business, Google was required to share data with rivals as part of its remedies.

The US government had pushed for Chrome’s divestment, arguing the browser serves as a crucial gateway to the internet that brings in a third of all Google web searches.
Shares in Google-parent Alphabet have skyrocketed by more than 20 percent since that decision.

Judge Brinkema has said in pre-trial hearings that she will closely examine the outcome of the search trial when assessing her path forward in her own case.

These cases are part of a broader bipartisan government campaign against the world’s largest technology companies. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against such companies.