24 January 2025

Aristotle Onassis son death — His son’s death led Aristotle Onassis to his tragic downfall less than two years later. Illustration credit Greek Reporter from Wikimedia Commons

Aristotle Onassis’ son, Alexander (Greek: Αλέξανδρος), died on this day (January 23) in 1973. Onassis never recovered from the shock and grief, passing away two years later.

The death of Alexander Onassis, the successor to the Greek shipping magnate, marked the beginning of the Onassis family’s Greek tragedy, as Aristotle’s daughter, Christina, died in November 1988 at age 37.

On January 22, 1973, Alexander, then 24 years old, boarded his personal Piaggio P.136L-2 amphibious aircraft as a passenger at Hellinikon International Airport in Athens. As President of Olympic Aviation, a subsidiary of Olympic Airways owned by his father, he was overseeing pilot instruction for Donald McCusker, a potential recruit.

Alexander’s poor eyesight meant that he could not hold an air transport certificate, but could possess a commercial pilot certificate. It allowed him to fly light planes and air taxis for emergency medical cases. By that day, he had accumulated 1,500 flying miles, having started in 1967.

Alexander and McCusker were accompanied in the plane by Donald McGregor, Onassis’ regular pilot, who was recovering from an eye infection. The three men had planned to practice amphibious landings between the Saronic Gulf islands Aegina and Poros.

A few seconds after takeoff from runway 33, the plane’s right wing dropped and stayed down, forcing the plane to crash shortly after losing control. The amphibious aircraft was only in the air for around 15 seconds when crashed.

Alexander Onassis, McCusker, and the other pilot suffered serious injuries in the crash. They were all taken to the hospital.

Aristotle Onassis collapsed after his son’s death.h

Aristotle Onassis was in New York City when he received the devastating news of his son’s crash. Stricken with shock, he collapsed before swiftly making his way to the airport. The following day, January 23, he arrived in Athens and went directly to the hospital where Alexander was being treated. Alexander’s mother also arrived from Switzerland with her husband, Stavros Niarchos.

Onassis had flown English neurosurgeon Alan Richardson from London to Athens, but Richardson later informed Onassis that Alexander had no chance of surviving his injuries.

Indeed, despite all efforts, Alexander succumbed to his wounds on January 23, 1973.

His death, just one day after the tragic crash, shattered Onassis, plunging him into a profound and irreversible grief. The loss of his son, whom he had hoped would one day succeed him, was not only a personal tragedy but also the crushing blow to his legacy and dreams for the future.

Aristotle Onassis considered having his son’s body cryogenically frozen, but was persuaded against it. Instead, Alexander was embalmed by Desmond Henley. Alexander Onassis was buried next to the chapel on his father’s private Ionian island of Skorpios.

Onassis said his son’s death was not an accident

The Greek shipping magnate refused to believe that his son’s death was an accident. Still in denial of his loss, he attributed the crash to the machinations of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Greek military junta leader Georgios Papadopoulos.

He also alleged that Stavros Niarchos, his arch-rival for dominance of international ship ownership was involved. He even accused Olympic Airways employees of sabotaging Alexander’s plane. McCusker and six Olympic Airways engineers were indicted for allegedly fitting faulty controls to the plane. They were acquitted on November 7, 1977, by the decision of the Three-Member Criminal Court of Athens.

The three reports subsequently unanimously concluded that the incident was caused by the incorrect installation of the ailerons, which led to the aircraft’s inability to respond to the pilot’s commands.
Other investigations bore no results. Onassis put a reward for his son’s death offering $1 million for information on the culprits. The reward is still in effect today.
Aristotle’s health rapidly deteriorated in the months following his son’s death. Once one of the most powerful men in the world, Onassis became a shell of himself, both psychologically and physically. He never recovered from the loss of his son, slowly losing the will to live.

Friends and family described him as a man transformed, his once vibrant energy replaced by a profound grief that seemed to age him overnight. He developed myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that weakened him further, and withdrew from the public eye, a stark contrast to the confident and ambitious figure he had been. As his health declined, so too did his involvement in the business empire he had built. The man who once dominated international shipping was now a shadow of his former self, his life irrevocably altered by the loss of his son.

He died just two years after on March 15, 1975, at age 69, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. The cause was respiratory failure, a complication of myasthenia gravis. He was buried next to his only son on Skorpios.

Before his death, in memory of his only son, Aristotle Onassis established the “Alexander Onassis” Foundation, based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, with headquarters in Athens. From the profits of the Onassis financial empire, the foundation grants scholarships and finances various charitable projects.

The Life of Alexander Onassis

Alexander Onassis was born in New York City on April 30, 1948, and enjoyed a princely life as the son of one of the wealthiest men in the world, Aristotle Onassis. His mother, Tina Livanos, was the daughter of another prominent Greek shipping magnate, Stavros G. Livanos. Instead of pursuing formal education, he worked at his father’s headquarters in Monaco.

He and his younger sister Christina Onassis (December 1950-November 1988) loved their mother and were upset in October 1968, when their father married Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. They had hoped that he might remarry their mother, which had seemed possible towards the end of their father’s relationship with the Greek opera singer Maria Callas.

Tensions between father and son worsened when at 18 he had an affair with a British fashion model, Fiona von Thyssen (née Campbell Walter) some 16 years his senior and a friend of her mother. She was the former wife of industrialist Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. His father sought to create distance between them by purchasing a $2 million villa for him outside of Athens.

The original article: https://greekreporter.com/2025/01/23/aristotle-onassis-collapse-death-son-alexander/ belongs to GreekReporter.com .