Jake Brennan (30:16)
Aaliyah may have never woken up from that dream. That dream, by the way. The one I described earlier, in which she is running from something in the darkness. Only the lift off, take flight and escape. She described it as a dream that she kept having when she gave what would turn out to be one of her final interviews to a German reporter in Paris. This was just weeks before she traveled to the Bahamas to shoot the video for Rock the Boat with Hype Williams. Once again, According to the 13 year old luggage carrier who was helping out with his family's business at the Marsh Harbor Airport, the one who saw someone give a pill to Aaliyah before she passed out once it was time to board the Cessna 402B twin engine plane traveling from the Bahamas back to Miami on August 25, 2001. Aaliyah was still asleep and had to be carried onto the plane. Which leads to the obvious, what was that pill? And who gave it to her? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Getting on the plane unconscious may have been the only way Aaliyah would have agreed to do it, seeing as how she had a lot of anxiety about boarding the aircraft in the first place. It was small and she worried it was over the weight limit directly preceding her being carried onto the plane. An argument took place among airport personnel about the total weight of the passengers and their luggage. The pilot was complaining to anyone that would listen, and the back baggage handlers too. There was too much luggage on board one minute and there wasn't too much luggage on board the next. It kept going back and forth. Malia's team, that's her bodyguard, her makeup artist, two hairstylists and three record label employees, were all getting restless. The plane was scheduled to take off at 4:30 in the afternoon. But now it was almost 6 and they were still at a standstill. Tempers flared. The pilot threw up his hands and he conceded he didn't even know what he was arguing about anymore. He just wanted to get his bird up in the air and get these irritated flatlanders back home. It was 6:45 that evening when the Cessna finally boarded, over two hours past its original departure time. The skies were blue. The weather was calm. The plane's twin propellers began to squeak and twirl as the engine fired and then kicked into full speed, the sound like dual supersized lawnmowers burning hot and loud. The passengers settled in as the pilot taxied the aircraft to the top of the Runway and the call came in over the radio that they'd been cleared for takeoff. The pilot increased the throttle and the plane rumbled and sped forward, gaining speed as it traveled down the Runway. More throttle, more rumbling, more speed, and they were airborne. The Cessna grabbed gradually, making the climb from the ground to the clouds. Steady up a little higher, steady and higher, still steady. And then, after just 60 seconds, some 100ft in the air, the plane suddenly veered to the left, way off course. And as it did, the nose began to turn from ascent to descent, from skyward to earthbound, and the Cessna was in a free fall, straight down the plane. Plane dropped like a stone within seconds, crashing into the marsh lined with bushes. It exploded upon impact and the wreckage was in flames. First responders found an aircraft ripped to pieces, the bodies of all seven passengers, as well as the pilot were strewn throughout the crash site. Someone was screaming. Three of the people on board, Aaliyah's bodyguard, her hair stylist, and one other unidentified person Were found alive, Though all three soon died, either at the hospital or on the way. Everyone else was pronounced dead at the scene, Including Aaliyah, who was discovered approximately 20ft from the mangled, smoking twist of steel, Strapped into her seat, curled up, head between her legs, covered in burns with signs of massive head trauma. An investigation into the crash blamed it on engine failure, Adding that as Aaliyah herself suspected, the overloaded cargo and passengers on board could have contributed to that failure. But overloading and engine failure quickly took a back seat when new revelations came to light. Revelations about the pilot, the charter company, illegal drugs, and massive fraud. The kinds of things that make a plane go into a nose dive after takeoff. The kinds of things that ensure that life never plays out the way it's supposed to. Two weeks before he flew, the Cessna that crashed killed Aaliyah, her team, and himself. The pilot, Louis Morales iii, was in a Florida courtroom. He was facing four felonies, including one for possession of crack cocaine. He pleaded no contest. In exchange for that plea, Louis Morales was sentenced to three years probation. Since he was technically not convicted of a crime, his pilot's license was not revoked. All the same, he wasn't supposed to be in the cockpit of that Cessna on August 25, 2001. We know this now because Luis Morales was not listed on the charter plane company's official certificate for the flight. This information was revealed days after the initial crash. It wasn't until close to a year later that an even bigger bombshell was revealed. That being an autopsy report which proved that there was cocaine in and alcohol in Louis Morales body at the time of the accident. Now, Louis Morales wasn't the only one involved in this tragedy who had a record. Blackhawk international Airways, the charter company in charge of the flight, had been fined by the FAA four times in the last three years for violating safety standards, for failing to comply with maintenance standards, and for failing to test its employees for illegal drug use. Even more black holes. Owner Gilbert Chacon had his own criminal record for fraud and not some rinky dink con job either. The guy was part of a huge $400 million insurance scam. His home address was listed as the address of another company called sky street, which was the owner of the Cessna 402B. As all of these facts were revealed to the public in the weeks following the crash, The FAA employee who had cleared the flight took his own life. It gets even more complicated from here. It turns out that Blackhawk wasn't originally hired to charter the flight. That was supposed to have been the responsibility of another company called Skylimo, partnering with a shipment company called Pro Freight Cargo Service. Pro Freight had actually determined that the luggage was heavy enough to require multiple planes to get everyone and everything back to the mainland safely. But when the original flight time had to be rescheduled, someone used that blip in the plan to hastily replace Skylimo with Blackhawk. Someone who? We still don't know. And why? Most likely because Blackhawk was cheaper and cut more corners. Of course, there are other narratives out there about why Blackhawk, a cheapo company with a bad rep, was chosen last minute to bring Aaliyah home. The R and B singer Mary J. Blige, for one, not a close friend of Aaliyah's, but a known acquaintance Speaking on the BET Show 106 and park claimed that Aaliyah's death was not a simple accident, but rather a murder, a spiritual murder. She went on to say, quote, I could go a lot deeper for a lot of people. I would have to bring proof. More recently, there's Jaguar Wright, a singer songwriter who is working with the Roots and Jay Z around the same same time that Aaliyah's star was on the rise in the wake of the recent allegations against Sean Diddy Combs, Jaguar Wright has gone on the offensive publicly. In a series of impassioned interviews that have been circulating on social media, she lays out a conspiracy surrounding Aalyah's death that lays the blame not on Diddy, but instead on Jay Z, the one time business partner of Damon Dash the Roc, a fella executive whom Aaliyah was dating at the time. And look, I'm not even going to touch that one right now. You can go look it up for yourself and see what she has to say. It's wild. And then there's Damon dash, who in 2001 was the love of Aalyah's life and the major motivation for her to return back home on the day that she did. In an interview on Entertainment Tonight, Dame alleged that Lenny Kravitz offered to send a private jet to the Bahamas to pick up Aaliyah. But instead, Hype Williams took that jet, leaving Aaliyah stuck with the whole Blackhawk debacle. When asked if he'd ever confronted Hype Williams about this, Dame replied, fuck yeah. But when pressed to divulge the details of that confrontation, Dame only said, ask him. And just earlier this year, 2024, Dame Dash was talking again about his relationship with Aaliyah and how that immeasurable loss affected both his life and the music world. This time, he was speaking on the PBD podcast. This time, Dame said, quote, I know what happened, but I'm not going to tell you what the truth is. At this moment, we're in public. Maybe that truth will come out in time if there really is a hidden truth behind this great tragedy. Until then, we do know this. In 2002, one year after the accident, Halia's family filed a lawsuit for wrongful death and negligence that named, among others, Blackhawk, its owner Gilbert Chacon, skystream, Hype Williams and Virgin Records. In addition to being accused by one attorney of putting profits over people, Virgin also failed to honor a verbal promise to pay a Nassau mortuary to prepare the bodies of Aaliyah and other passengers. Ultimately, the RB singer Maxwell stepped up to foot the bill for Aaliyah's funeral. But that's another story itself. One year after the lawsuit was filed, the family settled with Black Hawk Sky Streaming in Chacon for an undisclosed sum. The details of that settlement are confidential. But the incredible talent, the fire that burned deep in the heart and soul of Aaliyah, that's in the public record. The fact that that public record only lasted until 2001, now more than 20 years in the past, when Aaliyah Haughton was just getting started, that's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace Land. All right, guys, thanks for listening to this episode on a list. Leah this week's Question of the week is which child star? This can be a musician like Leah, or it can be an actor, an actress. Which child star has made the Most impact on you? 617-90-66638 Leave me a voicemail. Send me a text with your answer his gracelandpod on the socials. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted material, bonus episodes, special audio collections and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details. 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