Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle becomes latest athlete to be killed by aviation tragedy
By Ben Church, CNN
(CNN) — Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, his wife Cristina and his two children died after a small private jet crashed shortly after takeoff in North Carolina on Thursday, in a disaster which killed a total of seven people.
Biffle, who is considered one of NASCAR’s 75 greatest drivers with 19 wins, was thought to be taking his family to visit creator and motorsports streamer Garrett Mitchell.
Biffle was a licensed pilot, but it’s not yet clear who was flying the aircraft. According to the Associated Press, the Cessna C550 crashed while trying to return and land at the Statesville Regional Airport, where it had departed shortly before on Thursday morning.
Dennis Dutton and his son Jack, as well as longtime NASCAR community member Craig Wadsworth, were identified as the other passengers, according to a joint statement from the families of those killed.
The tragedy is the latest in a growing number of aviation disasters which have rocked the motorsports community over the years, as well as the world of professional sports as a whole.
Davey Allison
Davey Allison was another NASCAR driver who lost his life during an aviation crash in 1993.
The 1992 Daytona 500 winner and son of racing legend Bobby Allison was piloting a helicopter when it crashed at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.
According to AP, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report attributed the incident to the pilot’s inexperience, with the moment shocking the entire motorsport community.
Alan Kulwicki
Earlier in the same year, NASCAR’s 1986 Rookie of the Year Alan Kulwicki had died after a small jet he was in crashed on approach to an airport in Tennessee.
Kulwicki died alongside three others, including two sponsorship executives and the pilot. According to AP, the NTSB ruled the pilot had failed to clear the engine inlet of ice.
The Wisconsin native had previously won the 1992 driver’s championship in dramatic style, beating Bill Elliott (who survived an aviation scare) in what was the closest title race in history.
Motorsports history
The motorsport world has since numerous other aviation tragedies.
In 2004, 10 people connected to Hendrick Motorsports were killed when a plane headed for Martinsville Speedway crashed into a mountain due to foggy conditions.
Then in 2019, nine-time NASCAR champion and NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Mike Stefanik died in a plane crash.
According to Connecticut State Police, an Aerolite 103, single-engine, single-seat plane took off with Stefanik on board from Riconn Airport just over the state line in Rhode Island. Police say the ultralight plane, while turning back toward the airfield, crashed into a wooded area adjacent to the airport in Sterling, Connecticut.
Kobe Bryant
More recently, NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash in 2020.
The crash occurred about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles and killed all nine people aboard.
The passengers were heading from Orange County to the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a youth basketball game in which Bryant was to coach and Gianna and two others aboard were to play.
Bryant’s death sparked an outpouring of emotional tributes, with his legacy touching all four corners of the world.
Emiliano Sala
In 2019, the soccer world was brought to a halt after the death of Emiliano Sala.
Sala and a pilot were traveling from France to Wales after Welsh club Cardiff City had agreed to sign the striker from French side Nantes. The soccer star had said farewell to his former teammates just before the plane crashed in the English Channel on January 21.
Sala’s body was recovered from the wreckage on February 6, 2019, after a private search for the missing player and the pilot was commissioned by his family.
Roy Halladay
Pitcher Roy Halladay, who won two Cy Young Awards and more than 200 Major League Baseball games during a stellar career, died in a plane crash off the Florida coast in 2017.
Halladay, 40, was the only person on the two-seater plane that crashed just off New Port Richey on the Gulf coast north of the Tampa Bay area.
The single-engine plane, an Icon A5, crashed in very shallow water and was found upside down.
Halladay had done several aerial maneuvers in his plane and had drugs in his system when he lost control and crashed, according to the NTSB.
Halladay pitched parts of 16 seasons in the major leagues, the first 12 with the Toronto Blue Jays. He won the Cy Young for the Blue Jays in 2003, when he went 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA and led the American League with nine complete games. He was elected posthumously to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
Payne Stewart
In 1999, one of the world’s most recognizable golfers died when his private plane lost cabin pressure, an incident which killed all four passengers and both pilots.
Stewart was a three-time major winner and was the reigning US Open champion when he died.
The plane eventually crashed in South Dakota but had been flying on auto-pilot for a while with everyone on board either unconscious or already dead, according to AP.
Stewart was 42 at the time, but his legacy still lives on through an annual award presented by the PGA Tour to a golfer who shows the former champion’s spirit.
Roberto Clemente
On New Year’s Eve in 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente died after a plane crashed on takeoff from Puerto Rico.
Clemente was bringing emergency aid to Nicaragua after an earthquake had hit the country.
The Baseball Hall of Famer led the Pirates to two World Series titles during an illustrious career, where he was named a 15-time All-Star and the 1966 NL MVP.
According to AP, the plane Clemente was on was poorly maintained and overloaded.
Munich Air disaster
In 1958, a disaster rocked arguably the most famous club in world soccer, Manchester United.
The squad – dubbed the “Busby Babes” – was the back-to-back English champion and well positioned for a hat-trick of titles.
But after United returned home from knocking Red Star Belgrade out of the European Cup, the team’s plane crashed on its third attempt to take off after re-fueling in Germany.
A total of 23 people were killed in the crash, including eight Manchester United players.
The Red Devils went on to rebuild the team, led by survivors including manager Matt Busby and club legend Bobby Charlton. The tragedy is still remembered every year on February 6.
Chapecoense
Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense also suffered a tragedy in 2016 after a plane carrying the team crashed.
Players, coaches and invited guests from the team were on board the charter flight, when it crashed in Rionegro, near Medellín. Seventy-one people were killed and six survived.
Among the victims were around 20 journalists on the way to cover what was supposed to be a heartwarming chapter in a Cinderella story for a team of unlikely champions. The soccer club, which had risen the ranks in Brazilian soccer and has a devoted national fanbase, was set to play in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana finals.
Hundreds of heartbroken fans gathered at Arena Conda in the team’s hometown of Chapeco, Brazil, to mourn their loss.
Figure skaters
Earlier this year, several members of US Figure Skating were killed in midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter.
No one survived the incident and a total of 28 members of the US figure skating community were killed, including a married pair of skating champions, two young skaters and their mothers.
The multigenerational loss evoked painful memories of the 1961 plane crash that killed 73 people – including all 18 members of the US figure skating team headed to the world figure skating championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. That disaster killed not just elite athletes but also their coaches, leaving seismic voids in US figure skating for generations to come.
Marshall University football team
In November 1970, a chartered Southern Airways plane crashed while trying to land in West Virginia.
The crash killed all 75 people on board, including the Marshall University football team and its coaching staff.
In 2006, a film called We Are Marshall depicted how the team rebuilt itself following the tragedy which shocked the US.
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