Why does it seem that a disproportionate number of musicians (great ones) die in plane crashes?
I think that you are right in both things that you said. First though, you have to think about how many YEARS we are talking about here. From the 1950s until the 2000s, it doesn’t seem like that many. And, just looking at your list, I am seeing more names from an earlier time (before small airplanes and maybe even small airplane pilots were the product of so much experience). Like you said, musicians travel lots of miles from the start of a tour until its end. Also, like you said, the news coverage is huge when a famous person dies in a plane crash. That is true of car crashes, too, although people are not as likely to die when a tour bus crashes vs. a small plane. Unfortunately, there are many deaths from crashes of single engine planes and other “small” planes (as opposed to commercial jets) each year. The vast majority of them don’t get national attention but even if the crashes get attention, the victims don’t get very much press. Here is a blurb from USA Today. This appeared in th
