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Authors: Gavin de Becker,Thomas A. Taylor,Jeff Marquart

Just 2 Seconds (69 page)

BOOK: Just 2 Seconds
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919.
Date: August 4, 1996
Victim: Former Governor Michael Dukakis
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Details: The car driven by Dukakis' wife, Kitty, went out of control and struck a guardrail, slightly injuring both. She may have fallen asleep. They were treated and released at a hospital.

920.
Date: August 7, 1996
Victim: Governor Roy Romer
Location: Colorado
Details: While rounding up stray cattle on his 400-acre ranch, Romer fell off his dirt bike and broke his right leg. He previously suffered cracked ribs in a dirt bike accident in 1995.

921.
Date: August 17, 1996
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Montana
Details: A C-130 Air Force cargo plane, carrying a communications van used in Clinton's motorcade, crashed into a mountain after taking off, killing eight Air Force crewmembers and a Secret Service agent.

922.
Date: August 28, 1996
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Michigan City, Indiana
Details: Less than two hours before Clinton arrived for a rally, a 20-foot speaker stand toppled into the crowd of 40,000 people, injuring 12. The stage was about ten yards from the speaker stand.

923.
Date: September 6, 1996
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Orlando, Florida
Details: A Marine Boeing CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter traveling with Clinton's campaign tour through Florida was taxiing to a fuel truck when its rotor clipped a light pole. It rolled over and burned, but none of the five Marines or Boeing employee on it was injured. Another Marine CH-46 helicopter traveling with Clinton made a precautionary landing south of Orlando after a warning light came on.

924.
Date: September 18, 1996
Victim: Presidential Candidate (Senator) Bob Dole
Location: Chico, California
Details: Dole leaned against a railing on a raised platform to shake hands at a campaign rally. The railing gave way and Dole fell four feet to the ground. Secret Service agents rushed in to help him up and he went on to complete his speech. His only injury was a broken blood vessel in one eye.

925.
Date: September 21, 1996
Victim: Senator Ben N. Campbell
Location: Rico, Colorado
Details: Campbell lost control of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on a patch of gravel, slid 1-1/2 feet and struck a guardrail, severely breaking his arm. He underwent several hours of surgery.

926.
Date: October 30, 1996
Victim: State Official Arthur Quern
Location: Wheeling, Illinois
Details: A Gulfstream IV jet crashed just after takeoff, killing Quern, both pilots, and a cabin attendant. Strong winds may have contributed. Quern was formerly an aide to two governors and President Ford.

927.
Date: November 5, 1996
Victim: Governor Kirk Fordice
Location: Grenada, Mississippi
Details: The Jeep Cherokee driven by Fordice went out of control and flipped over several times as it rolled down an embankment and caught fire. Passing motorists cut the airbag and seat belt and pulled him out. He suffered a bruised heart and liver, fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, a severed ear, and other injuries. He was
en route
to a political party and was not accompanied by his bodyguards.

928.
Date: November 7, 1996
Victim: President Abdala Bucaram
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Details: One of three helicopters carrying Bucaram's entourage caught fire and crashed on takeoff. He wasn't aboard. Some in the government claimed it was an attempted assassination.

929.
Date: December 2, 1996
Victim: U.S. Consul Philip T. Lincoln Jr.
Location: Nanning, China
Details: Lincoln, a local government official, and their driver were all killed in a traffic accident while on an official trip to south China.

930.
Date: January 20, 1997
Victim: Governor George Pataki
Location: Albany, New York
Details: A poultry truck ran a red light and slammed into the left side of Pataki's Chevrolet Suburban. Pataki was taken to the hospital and released the next day. The truck driver was arrested.

931.
Date: February 18, 1997
Victim: Governor Parris Glendening
Location: Riverdale, Maryland
Details: While
en route
to the Capitol, a car pulled into the path of Glendening's car, striking it. He was not injured, but the trooper driving him was taken to the hospital. He was the third governor between November 1996 and February 1997 to be involved in an accident.

932.
Date: March 11, 1997
Victim: President Robert Mugabe
Location: Shannon, Ireland
Details: The Zimbabwe airplane carrying Mugabe landed safely following a false fire alert shortly after takeoff. No one was injured.

933.
Date: March 14, 1997
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Details: While visiting the home of golf pro Greg Norman, Clinton tripped on stairs and tore his right quadriceps. He was treated by paramedics and taken to St. Mary's Hospital for treatment. Later that day, he was flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital and underwent two hours of surgery. His agents were trained to carry him in an emergency.

934.
Date: May 27, 1997
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Shannon, Ireland
Details: Air Force One (AF-1) came within 2 to 3 miles horizontally and about 1,000 feet vertically of a UPS cargo jumbo jet, causing the collision avoidance system to alert. Both pilots turned left. The incident occurred over Ireland as AF-1 was bringing Clinton back from a European trip. Some reports said they were seven seconds from collision.

935.
Date: June 26, 1997
Victim: State Representative Terry Deering
Location: DuBois, Illinois
Details: Deering was killed in a one-car accident while driving home from a Cardinal's baseball game. His car skidded through a T-intersection and struck an embankment. He had a .179 blood-alcohol content, and had been arrested by a trooper for driving while intoxicated a few weeks before the accident.

936.
Date: August 31, 1997
Victim: Lady Diana, Princess of Wales
Location: Paris, France
Details: Shortly after midnight, Diana and Dodi Fayed left the Ritz Hotel in a Mercedes with their driver and bodyguard. Paparazzi photographers followed them on motorcycles. Their driver speeded into Pont de l'Alma tunnel at high speed to elude the followers and lost control. The car veered left, striking a cement pylon head-on, bounced into the opposite wall, and ended up facing oncoming traffic. At 12:45 a.m., emergency personnel arrived and found Fayed and the driver dead, and Diana and the bodyguard severely injured. They cut them out of the car and the ambulance arrived at Salpetriere Hospital at 2:00 a.m. Diana underwent two hours of surgery and heart massage, but was pronounced dead at 4:00 a.m. Police found the driver's blood-alcohol content was 0.175, over three times the legal limit. Henri Paul, a former air force pilot, attended security training from Mercedes-Benz in Germany. He reportedly taunted the paparazzi before leaving: "Catch me if you can." The bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, a former paratrooper, wore a seat belt and survived.

937.
Date: November 9, 1997
Victim: First Lady Hillary Clinton
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: The Boeing 707 Air Force plane carrying Clinton developed engine trouble after taking off from Andrews AFB
en route
to Central Asia. The plane dumped its fuel and safely returned to base. A frayed wire caused the fire alarm to sound.

938.
Date: January 5, 1998
Victim: U.S. Senator Sonny Bono
Location: South Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Details: While skiing down an intermediate slope, Bono crashed into a tree and was killed almost instantly from a head injury. Thirty-six people died in skiing accidents that season, and 55 percent of the ski deaths are from head injuries. The accident came only five days after Michael Kennedy was killed when he skied into a tree at Aspen, Colorado.

939.
Date: January 14, 1998
Victim: Prince Charles
Location: England
Details: While fox hunting, Charles fell off his horse and cracked a rib. He broke his arm in 1990 in a polo game, and gave up polo in 1994 after a back injury.

940.
Date: January 21, 1998
Victim: Former Governor Lamar Alexander
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Details: When the landing gear failed to deploy on Alexander's twin-engine Beechcraft Baron, he and three others circled for four hours, trying to manually lower the gear. When that failed, they landed with only the right gear down, which collapsed. The plane skidded to a stop on its belly, but no one was injured.

941.
Date: January 28, 1998
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Champaign, Illinois
Details: When Air Force One (AF-1) got stuck in the mud while preparing to take off, Clinton had to transfer to a backup plane. The incident occurred just hours after AF-1 and a commercial U.S. Airways Boeing 737 passed each other at less than the required three-mile horizontal separation. The FAA investigated the "near miss" report after AF-1 took off from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

942.
Date: January 28, 1998
Victim: Defense Minister Firmin Sinzoyiheba
Location: Bujumbura, Burundi
Details: While
en route
to peace talks, Sinzoyiheba's helicopter crashed, killing him, his bodyguard, his personal secretary, a general, and the pilot. They were flying through a thunderstorm at the time.

943.
Date: February 3, 1998
Victim: Governor Mel Carnahan
Location: Jefferson City, Missouri
Details: A 300-pound chunk of carved limestone fell off the Capitol Building and crashed outside Carnahan's office. There were no injuries.

944.
Date: April 1, 1998
Victim: Diplomat Lawrence Pickup
Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Details: An overloaded, Soviet-built MI-8 helicopter was flying Pickup and 43 others on a diplomatic mission. The pilot lost control in strong winds while landing and came down in a minefield, setting off two land mines. Three were injured. A second helicopter was used to fly them to a hospital.

945.
Date: June 26, 1998
Victim: U.N. Envoy Alioune Blondin Beye
Location: Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Details: A small, chartered Beechcraft plane, carrying Beye and six others, crashed, killing all on board. The plane crashed in a swamp while approaching the airport.

946.
Date: July 3, 1998
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Hong Kong, China
Details: The elevator carrying Clinton, his wife, and their Secret Service agents, broke down. They were trapped for ten minutes until other agents could rescue them. The incident was likely the result of a lightning strike during a thunderstorm.

947.
Date: July 13, 1998
Victim: Chelsea Clinton (daughter of President Clinton)
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: A camera battery exploded just a few feet from Clinton, causing her Secret Service agents to react quickly. Smoke poured from the cameraman's battery belt. She was attending a ceremony at the Smithsonian Museum with her parents.

948.
Date: September 21, 1998
Victim: Japanese Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Details: An anti-terrorism barricade accidentally popped up out of the ground as Nukaga's limousine was entering the Pentagon grounds. His car struck it head-on, lifting it in the air. Nukaga and five others in the car were injured and taken to the hospital. An inadvertent radio transmission may have triggered the device.

949.
Date: September 28, 1998
Victim: Prime Minister Carlos Veiga
Location: West African Archipelago
Details: Veiga's Twin Otter plane crashed while landing during a storm. Among the 20 passengers, Veiga and several others were injured, and at least one bodyguard was killed.

950.
Date: November 13, 1998
Victim: Vice President Zubair Mohamed Saleh
Location: Sudan
Details: Saleh and several other military and political leaders died when their Russian-made transport plane skidded off the runway and fell into a river on landing in the southern part of Sudan. No one has been able to say why the plane crashed.

951.
Date: May 15, 1999
Victim: President Bill Clinton
Location: Los Angeles, California
Details: Air Force One (AF-1) was preparing to land when a small commuter plane approached close enough to cause the AF-1 pilot to quickly ascend 400 feet and turn left to avoid coming too close. The planes never violated the 1000-foot vertical separation requirement.

952.
Date: June 19, 1999
Victim: Author Stephen King
Location: Lovell, Maine
Details: King was walking along a highway when a man in a van veered off the road and struck him. King underwent several operations for broken bones in his right hip and leg. The driver of the van pleaded guilty to charges of reckless driving. (Some months later, King bought the 1985 Dodge Caravan that hit him for $1500).

953.
Date: July 16, 1999
Victim: Magazine Publisher John F. Kennedy Jr.
Location: Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Details: Kennedy, the pilot, departed from Fairfield, New Jersey in his Piper Saratoga airplane with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette. He planned to drop off his sister-in-law on the island, and then continue on to his cousin's wedding in Hyannis Port. He apparently became disoriented and crashed into the sea, killing all on board.

954.
Date: August 28, 1999
Victim: Cabinet Minister Radovan Stojkovski
Location: Skopje, Macedonia
Details: Stojkovski, and his wife and daughter, were killed when their car collided head-on with an armored vehicle driven by NATO peacekeepers.

955.
Date: September 15, 1999
Victim: Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Yiannos Kranidiotis
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Details: Kranidiotis was reportedly standing in the aisle of his Falcon jet, briefing reporters, when the plane flew into severe turbulence, plummeting from 23,000 to 4,000 feet in less than five minutes. Kranidiotis, his bodyguard, his son, two journalists, and the flight engineer were all killed. The plane safely landed in Bucharest.

BOOK: Just 2 Seconds
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