Death
On April 3, 1996 at age 54, while on an official trade mission, the Air Force CT-43 (a modified Boeing 737) carrying Brown and 34 other people, including New York Times Frankfurt Bureau chief Nathaniel C. Nash, crashed in Croatia. While attempting an instrument approach to Čilipi airport, the airplane crashed into a mountainside. Everyone aboard was killed instantly except Air Force Tech. Sgt. Shelley Kelly, a flight attendant, who died while being transported to a hospital. The final Air Force investigation attributed the crash to pilot error and a poorly designed landing approach. Speculations as to the circumstances surrounding the plane crash that caused Brown's death include many government cover-up and conspiracy theories, largely based on Brown having been under investigation by independent counsel for corruption. Of specific concern was a trip Brown had made to Viet Nam on behalf of the Clinton Adminsitration. Brown carried an offer for normalizing relations between the U.S. and the former communist enemy. When details of the meetings and subsequent offer were linked to the press President Clinton denied it. Brown was scheduled to testify before a House committee but died in a plane crash prior to when he was to appear.
Read more about this topic: Ron Brown (U.S. Politician)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“We like the chase better than the quarry.... And those who philosophize on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“...there is death in the pot!”
—Bible: Hebrew, 2 Kings 4:40.