The day the golfing world wept

October 25 1999 — Payne Stewart, 42, and five others die in their chartered Learjet, just four months after he had won the US Open and less than a month after the US’s dramatic 14½-13½ Ryder Cup victory. The plane flies on autopilot for 3 hours and 54 minutes over 2,400km before crashing near Mina, South Dakota. The plane took off from Orlando International for Dallas at 9.19am with Stewart; his agents Van Ardan, 45, and Robert Fraley, 46; golf course architect

Bruce Borland, 40; and the pilots Michael Kling, 42, and Stephanie Bellegarrigue, 27. A controller in Jacksonville instructed Kling to climb to and maintain flight level 11,900m. At 9.27am, at 7,000m, Kling acknowledged with “three nine zero bravo alpha”— the last known radio transmission from the plane. The next communication, 14 minutes after departure with the plane at 11,100m, goes unacknowledged. The drama plays out on TV as the plane passes over eight states. An F-16 pilot, sent to investigate, reports that the windows seem to be covered with condensation or ice on the inside. He detects no life on board. Four F-16s follow until the plane runs out of fuel, goes into a spiral and hits the ground at nearly supersonic speed. National Transportation Safety Board investigators conclude that the plane failed to pressurise and that all on board died due to hypoxia as it passed to the west of Gainesville, Florida. Stewart won the PGA Championship in 1989 and the US Open in 1991 and 1999. Picture: Celebrating his second US Open title at Pinehurst on June 20 after sinking a winning 5m par putt.