Is This Any Way to Run an Airline? Quiz

Answer: Bomb

Buddy Holly apparently was out of clean clothes and was tired of sitting on a bus all night with no heating in -25 degree cold. He hired Roger Peterson to fly himself and two others from Mason City airport to Fargo in North Dakota.
The pilot, Roger Peterson was not rated to fly under instruments alone, and he was not familiar with the controls of the plane he was flying. Holly's .22 calibre firearm had been found in a nearby field, leading to speculation that an accidental discharge caused the crash.

Answer: Graeme "Shirley" Strachan

"Shirley" Strachan, lead singer of the Australian '70s band Skyhooks, was working toward his helicopter licence when he crashed his chopper into a mountain slope on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. It is believed that air turbulence around the mountains caused the rotor to sever the tailboom, causing the chopper to crash.

Answer: Martha's Vineyard

Kennedy Jr was not qualified to fly by instruments only, and it is thought that spatial disorientation due to descending over water at night caused the crash. Although the weather was officially good enough that he was cleared to fly despite the lack of IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) rating, most of the area was hazy with visibility down to only five miles. Kennedy's wife Caroline and sister-in-law Lauren were also killed.

Answer: Manchester United Football Club

The British European Airways flight carrying the Manchester United football team home from Yugoslavia stopped to refuel in Munich. On takeoff from Munich, the plane developed engine problems, which caused two aborted takeoffs. Rather than ground the plane overnight, the pilot attempted a third takeoff, but new slush on the end of the runway caused it to lose takeoff velocity. The plane had already exceeded the safe abort speed and crashed at the end of the runway. 20 people, including seven players perished at the scene. In subsequent days, a further three people, including the pilot and another player, died of their injuries.

Man U won the English Premier League in 1956-57 and was the first English team to play in the European Cup. Eventual winners Real Madrid knocked them out in the semi-finals.

Answer: Lynyrd Skynyrd

Shortly after the release of the group's fifth album "Street Survivors", the band's chartered aeroplane ran out of fuel and crashed into a forest. Band members Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines were killed, along with Steve's sister, backup singer Cassie. Also killed in the crash were the two pilots and the band's road manager. Most of the other members on the plane suffered severe injuries. The original cover of the album featured the band surrounded by flames, but it was changed to a black background following the tragedy.

The flames reappeared when the album was re-released thirty years later.

Answer: Steve Fossett

Steve Fossett was the first person to fly a balloon non-stop around the world, a feat he achieved in 2002. Fossett set the Absolute World Speed Record for airships in a Zepplin, and in 2004, he skippered the maxi catamaran "Cheyenne" to the fastest circumnavigation of the world. Fossett also set numerous records in mixed wing aircraft, including gliders.

Fossett also competed in cross country ski races, triathlons, the Iditarod dog sled race and several car races. He climbed the highest peaks on six of the seven continents, passing on Mount Everest due to his asthma.

In 2007, Fossett took off in his single engine aeroplane from Nevada with enough fuel for four to five hours flying. When he failed to return, a long search for the downed missing plane began, but there was no trace of Fossett or his plane. Up to 24 planes were involved in the search as well as satellite imagery of the mountainous area. Up to 50,000 people searched the area on the Internet imagery site "Amazon Mechanical Turk" but still nothing was found. A year later, Steve's crumpled ID cards were found by a hiker, leading to the discovery of the plane's wreckage 750 yards away.

Answer: Randy Rhoads

Randy Rhoads was a heavy metal guitarist who also enjoyed the classics. He has often been cited as inspiration to many modern guitarists. Rhoads played guitar for Ozzy Osborne in his band "Blizzard of Ozz" in 1979.

During a Tennessee stopover during the band's 1982 tour, they stayed at a property that had a small airstrip and several planes. Apparently, the tour bus driver owned one of the planes and he took the band's keyboardist for a flight. After the plane landed safely, Rhoads agreed to go on the plane despite his fear of flying. The plane buzzed the tour bus where some band members were sleeping, but one of the wings clipped the bus and spiraled into a tree and nearby garage. Toxicology results revealed that the pilot had cocaine in his bloodstream at the time.

Answer: Golf

Payne Stewart, known as much for his wardrobe of patterned pants as for his golfing skill, won two U.S. Opens and was posthumously inducted into the World Golf Hall of fame in 2001.

Payne was enroute to Dallas in the Lear jet in 1999, when air traffic control noticed the plane hadn't made a scheduled turn. Nor did the pilots respond to radio contact. The Air Force and National Air Guard were dispatched and found the plane flying in a straight line, obviously under autopilot control. They noticed the cockpit windows were iced over, which was a sign of a sudden depressurisation of the aircraft cabin. The plane was flying at 40,000 feet, and at that height it is unsure whether hypoxia or cold would have killed the occupants first. The plane was given an emergency escort as it flew until it ran out of fuel and crashed at 600 miles per hour into a field near Mina, South Dakota.

It was eventually found that the Learjet Company that manufactured the plane, knew there were problems with cracking in older Learjets. But they were only liable for planes under 18 years, whereas the Learjet involved in the Payne Stewart crash was 23 years old.

Answer: Reba McEntire

Reba McEntire's backing band was travelling in two chartered planes in 1990 when the first of the two crashed into the side of a mountain. The crash was blamed on poor visibility at night, but it was not bad enough to ground the plane.

Luckily for Reba fans, the singer was not on the plane. Shortly after the crash she dedicated her sixteenth album "For My Broken Heart" to the road band that died. The album sold two million copies and was the first album by a female country artist to be certified double platinum.

Answer: John Denver

John Denver was an American country singer known for songs such as "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". He was also an experienced pilot with over 2700 hours experience in multiple types of single-engine aircraft and was rated to fly under instrument guidance. He bought a new aircraft but crashed it after having only 30 minutes familiarization.