When I think of Jimmy Buffett, many images come to mind.

I think of music – my passion – steel drums, tropical islands, swaying palm trees, flip-flops, surfboards and life in the slow lane.

Buffett was a businessman who made a fortune by telling us how to squeeze every moment out of life. He dabbled in restaurants, resorts, clothing, retirement communities and even beer, among other things.

Buffett sold over 30 million records worldwide and wrote a handful of books, including several that became New York Times bestsellers.

Jimmy Buffett was the Pied Piper, and the legions of Parrot Heads who followed him were only too glad to do so.

Jimmy Buffett's downtime was spent on the water; he was, after all, the "son of a son of a sailor."

Boat U.S. says Buffett owned four boats over his lifetime. He loved to fish. Some of his favorite fishing spots were off Long Island – his home was in Sag Harbor, New York – and on Nantucket.

The Day Jimmy Buffett Crashed A Plane On Nantucket
Barry Richard/Townsquare Media
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Not only did Buffett embrace boating but he was an avid pilot, owning at least six planes during his lifetime. Flyingmag.com says Buffett "toured using bis Dassault Falcon 50 and later Falcon 900 (he was typed in both), and he owned and flew a succession of airplanes and amphibs – no surprise – including a Grumman Albatross."

According to the publication, Buffett's other aircraft included a Boeing Stearman Cessna Citation 500 series, a Cessna Caravan, and his first airplane, a Lake Renegade named Lady of the Waters.

It was during take off from the waters off Nantucket in a Grumman Widgeon, the Lady of the Waters, on Thursday, August 25, 1994, at just after 3 p.m. that Buffett crashed the plane.

Buffettworld.com says, "The airplane nosed over and Jimmy was able to swim to safety, sustaining only minor injuries."

In his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty, Buffett described "hanging like a captured insect in a spiderweb from the pilot's seat of a slowly sinking seaplane with the ever-present smell of aviation fuel burning my eyes and nostrils."

Buffett wrote, "What I had learned years earlier at the U.S. Navy flight survival school in Norfolk, Virginia, saved my life, pure and simple."

Despite the plane crash, Buffett continued to fly.

Jimmy Buffett died on September 1, 2023 from Merkel-cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer. He was 76.

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Gallery Credit: Rob Carroll

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You could do a lot of wasting away here. 

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