Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border, is the 12th in a shortlist of leaders who have met their untimely death in air crashes.
Below is a list of presidents who lost their lives in aviation crashes:
President José Félix Estigarribia, Paraguay (1940)
José Félix Estigarribia, Paraguay’s 34th president, died in a plane crash on September 7, 1940, in Altos, Paraguay. He was aboard a Potez 25 aircraft.
President Ramon Magsaysay, Philippines (1957)
Ramon Magsaysay, the seventh President of the Philippines, lost his life on March 17, 1957, when his plane, a C-47 named “Mt. Pinatubo,” crashed into Mount Manunggal in Cebu. Out of the 25 passengers on board, only one survived.
President Abdul Salam Arif, Iraq (1966)
Abdul Salam Arif, the second President of Iraq, played a key role in the 1958 revolution that overthrew the Hashemite monarchy. On April 13, 1966, Arif was killed when his Iraqi Air Force plane, a de Havilland DH.104 Dove, crashed near Basra Airport.
President Rene Barrientos Ortuno, Bolivia (1969)
René Barrientos Ortuño, the 47th president of Bolivia, was killed in a helicopter crash on April 27, 1969 while flying into Arque Municipality in Central Bolivia.
President Jaime Roldós Aguilera, Ecuador (1981)
Aguilera, who was the 33rd President of Ecuador was killed when On Sunday, May 24 1981, when his Beechcraft airplane carrying him and his entourage to a military ceremony crashed into the Huairapungo Hill, in the Loja Province, southern Ecuador. He died alongside his wife.
General Omar Torrijos
While Torrijos wasn’t officially the President of Panama, he was the defacto ruler from 1968 till his death in an air crash in 1981. He died at the age of 52 when his aircraft, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter of the Panamanian Air Force, crashed at Coclesito, near Panama City on July 31, 1981.
President Samora Moisés Machel, Mozambique (1986)
Samora Moisés Machel, the first President of Mozambique, served from the country’s independence in 1975. He died in office in 1986 when his presidential aircraft crashed near the Mozambican-South African border.
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan (1988)
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the sixth President of Pakistan, passed away on August 17, 1988. His C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Bahawalpur Airport.
President Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwanda and President Cyprien Ntaryamira, Burundi (1994)
On April 6, 1994, the President of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, died in a plane crash near the capital city of Kigali. The incident also claimed the life of Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and several others. Their aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 50, was struck by surface-to-air missiles as it prepared to land at Kigali International Airport.
President Boris Trajkovski, Macedonia (2004)
Trajkovski erved as the second President of Macedonia from 1999 until his death in 2004 in a plane crash. His Beechcraft jet went down on February 26, 2004 in a plane en route to an economic conference in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Lech Kaczyński, Poland (2010)
On April 10, 2010, Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland, was travelling to Russia to commemorate the Katyn massacre, where 22,000 Polish military officers were killed by the Soviet Union. This journey ended in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia, killing the president and all 96 people on board.
