4. Flight 111 Crash: Picasso Destroyed – 1998
On September 2, 1998, Swissair Flight 111 crashed near Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, killing 225 people. Pablo Picasso’s 1963 work Le Peintre (The Painter) had been loaded on the flight as cargo and was also destroyed. Swissair declined to identify the owner of the painting, or say to whom it was being shipped. The painting was shipped as general cargo, not valuable cargo, which would have entailed extra care, the airline said. Swissair officials said the shipping company, which it refused to identify, estimated the painting to be worth $1.5 million.