Answers: Leaders and Plane Crashes

Malawi’s Vice-President Saulos Chilima was killed in a plane crash in a forested mountainous area, just weeks after Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi died in similar circumstances.

Unexpected deaths of world leaders and politicians in plane crashes have changed the course of domestic politics as well as geopolitics. I had posted this quiz after Raisi’s death on leaders who were killed in plane crashes, in accidents as well as attacks and suspected sabotage.

Answers

1) He was a guerrilla fighter against Japanese colonalists and cracked down on communists as defence minister. He was elected president in 1953 but died in a plane crash at the peak of his popularity in 1957. A well-known annual award covering Asia was named after him. Who and which country?

Ramon Magsaysay, the Philippines. Magsaysay was a close ally of the United States in its Cold War fight against communism in Southeast Asia. The Manila Pact that led to the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was firmed up in 1954 during his time in office. More on Magsaysay here and here.

The Magsaysay Award was established by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and administered by the nonprofit Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. The first awards were announced in 1958 and they have been considered Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

If you are from Kerala, India you may remember that the state’s health minister from 2016-2021 K.K. Shailaja, who was widely praised for her response in the initial phase of the Covid-19 crisis had declined an offer to be considered for the Magsaysay Award. She is with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and her party cited Magsaysay’s crackdown on communists as one of the reasons. More here and here.

2) This military dictator died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988 along with the U.S. ambassador to that country. The novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes is based on the dictator’s death. Who and which country?

General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan. More here and here. More about Mohammed Hanif and his novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes here, here and here.

3) He was killed in June 1980 while attempting a risky aerobatic manoeuvre. His unexpected death at the age of 33 changed the succession plan of the country’s elected political dynasty. His elder brother, who had until then steered clear of politics, was elected to Parliament and later became prime minister. Who and which country?

Sanjay Gandhi, younger son and political heir of India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sanjay Gandhi earned notoriety for promoting forced sterilisations and slum clearances between 1975 and 1977, when civil liberties were suspended under an Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. Both mother and son and their Congress party lost in the elections that followed but infighting wrecked the Janata Party that came to power. Indira Gandhi was back as Prime Minister in 1980 but Sanjay was killed within a few months.

Sanjay Gandhi’s death led to the political entry of his elder brother Rajiv Gandhi, a commercial pilot with Indian Airlines who had until then kept away from politics. Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984 after his mother was assassinated. He was assassinated in 1991 while campaigning. His son Rahul Gandhi now leads the Congress. As for Sanjay Gandhi’s family, his widow Maneka was thrown out of the Prime Minister’s residence in 1982 after a spat with her mother-in-law. She contested unsuccessfully against her brother-in-law Rajiv in 1984 and eventually was part of governments led by the Janata Dal and then the BJP. Her son Varun Gandhi was also a BJP MP. More about India’s Gandhis and other political dynasties across the world in my previous quizzes here and here.

4) A 2017 United Nations report on a mysterious 1961 plane crash over what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) concluded it appeared "plausible" the aircraft came under attack. Who was the prominent international figure killed in the crash? (he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a rare gesture)

Dag Hammarskjold, then the UN Secretary-General. He was on a mission to try to broker peace in Congo, which had become a theatre of the Cold War soon after becoming independent from Belgium in 1960. More in my earlier quiz on Congo.

5) Paul Wellstone, Democratic Senator from the U.S. state of Minnesota died in a plane crash while running for re-election in October 2002, just over a week away from the vote. A retired politician who was a former U.S. Vice President replaced Wellstone. But his week-long campaign did not move the needle and he lost to his Republican rival. Who?

Walter Mondale, U.S. Vice President under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. He was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984 but lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide, surviving only in his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Reagan carried 49 states, securing 525 electoral college votes while Mondale won just 13. More on Mondale here. He was the first presidential nominee from one of the two major U.S. parties to choose a female running mate (Geraldine Ferraro)

6) This billionaire businessman and former president who served two terms in office died after the helicopter he was piloting crashed into a lake in February 2024. Who and which country?

Sebastian Pinera, two-time former President of Chile. His first presidency is remembered for the rescue of 33 trapped miners while his second term was marred by mass protests against high living costs and inequality. I explored Chile’s political polarisation earlier in my quiz here on General Augusto Pinochet and his legacy.

7) A plane carrying the presidents of two neighbouring countries was shot down by missiles as it was about to land in April 1994. Both presidents were killed and the assassinations accelerated a gruesome ethnic conflict. Name the two neighbouring countries.

Rwanda and Burundi. Rwanda’s Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi’s Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed. Both leaders were Hutu and media in Rwanda blamed Tutsi rebels for the assassinations without evidence. The mass targeting of ethnic Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide followed. More here and here.

8) A plane crash in Smolensk in western Russia in 2010 killed all 96 people on board including a country’s president, central bank chief, several MPs and senior military figures. In 2011, a government inquiry blamed bad weather and pilot error but the late president’s twin brother and party leader has suspected Kremlin sabotage (Russia has denied this). A new inquiry was ordered after his party came to power. Which country?

Poland. Then President Lech Kaczynski was among those killed in Smolensk. Polish and Russian reports blamed human error. But a special commission appointed after the conservative Law and Justice party led by Lech Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslav came to power alleged a Russian assassination plan (which Moscow denied) and repeatedly summoned Donald Tusk, Poland’s Prime Minister at the time of the crash, for questioning. More here, here and here. The commission was disbanded in December 2023 after Donald Tusk was back as prime minister.

9) This regional Indian politician’s death in a helicopter crash in September 2009 had massive political consequences. The state he was heading was divided into two in 2014. His death set off a chain of events that weakened his Congress party that was in power in New Delhi. Who?

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), who was Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Soon after his death, the demand to carve a state of Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh gathered momentum and New Delhi gave in by December 2009. Andhra Pradesh was crucial to Congress’s tally in parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2009, when it led coalition governments in New Delhi. After YSR’s death, his son Jagan Mohan Reddy attempted to be Chief Minister only to leave the Congress and form a new party after being thwarted. The Congress drew a blank in the remaining Andhra Pradesh in the 2014 parliamentary elections and finished with its worst-ever tally nationally as Narendra Modi led the BJP to power.

Subscriber Pras pointed out a notable omission in this quiz, South Sudan’s John Garang. The U.S.-educated longtime leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was a crucial figure in the rebellion that eventually led to an independent South Sudan in 2011. He died in a helicopter crash in 2005, just three weeks after becoming undivided Sudan’s first vice president under a peace deal. The SPLM chose Salva Kiir to replace Garang as its leader. Kiir became the first president of independent South Sudan in 2011 and continues in the role. The world’s youngest country has seen years of civil war after independence amid tensions between its two largest ethnic groups.

June 29 update: My colleague and subscriber Abdu pointed out the case of Mozambique’s Samora Machel. The first president of Mozambique who had led his country to independence from Portugal in 1975 was killed in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986. The cause of the crash has remained a mystery. Mozambique at the time was reeling from civil war with the Soviet Union backing Machel and his Frelimo movement and South Africa’s apartheid government backing the Renamo rebels. The civil war came to an end in 1992 but that agreement did not bring lasting peace.

Several promising Indian politicians were killed in plane crashes. Some of them were at the peak of their powers when their lives were cut short.

Balwantrai Mehta: Gujarat’s Chief Minister was killed during the India-Pakistan war of 1965 near the border after the Pakistan Air Force mistook his civilian plane for a reconnaissance aircraft.

Mohan Kumaramangalam: A former communist and a powerful minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet during the 1970s, he moved to nationalise the coal industry and pushed the government in a more socialist direction. He was killed in a plane crash near Delhi’s airport in 1973.

G.M.C. Balayogi: He was Speaker of the Lok Sabha (Lower House) from 1998 to 2002, when he was killed in a helicopter crash in his home state of Andhra Pradesh. He was the first Dalit politician to be the Speaker and the first from a regional party, Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu Desam Party.

Madhavrao Scindia: The Congress politician from the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior was killed in a plane crash while on the campaign trail in Uttar Pradesh in 2001.