Age: 70Died: April 5, 1976, somewhere over Texas
Cause: Heart failure while on a plane from Mexico to Houston for medical treatment.
Estate Mistake: The famed aviator/industrialist/film producer/eccentric left a $2.5 billion estate and hundreds of people scrambling for it. Because he apparently did not leave a will, it took seven years to settle the estate, spreading the fortune among 22 cousins.
Among the dozens of wills that surfaced after his 1976 death was the handwritten “Mormon will” with misspellings and mistakes that inspired extreme skepticism. The will, which named the church as a beneficiary, was produced by Melvin Dummar, a Utah service station owner who claimed to have rescued Howard Hughes in the desert. Dummar’s claim was finally thrown out on appeal in 2008.