Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine

He, his parents, younger brother Alexander, and grandmother Grand Duchess Eleonore were flying to London to attend the wedding of his uncle Prince Ludwig to Margaret Geddes. The plane crashed into a factory chimney near Ostend, Belgium.

Some have considered the Hessian family victims of a family curse because of the number of premature deaths in the family. Following the airplane crash, Ludwig's orphaned sister Johanna was adopted by her uncle Ludwig and his new wife Margaret, but died at age two and a half in June 1939 of meningitis. Ludwig was a great-nephew of Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, both of whom were killed with family members during the Russian Revolution of 1917. His paternal great-grandmother Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and a great aunt, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, both died of diphtheria. An aunt, Princess Elisabeth, died of virulent typhoid at age eight, though she was rumored to have eaten from a poisoned dish meant for Nicholas II of Russia. Read Less