Top Gun
Paramount Pictures’ romantic military drama, Top Gun, is one of the most iconic movies of the 1980s. Although it opened to mixed reviews, it went on to become the highest grossing movie of 1986 – 1987. Indeed, with a budget of only $15 million, the film went on to gross $356 million, making it one of the most commercially successful movies of the 1980s. In 2015, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, which is dedicated to conserving “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” movies.
One of Top Guns’ saddest scenes was the tragic death of Maverick’s buddy and fellow pilot, Goose, in an unfortunate accident. In real life, the movie’s biggest tragedy was the actual death of legendary pilot Art Scholl (1931 – 1985), to whom the film is dedicated in the end credits. He lost his life in a mysterious accident during filming, when his plane inexplicably plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
Scholl was a highly experienced aerobatic and stunt pilot, flight instructor, educator, and aerial cameraman, based in Southern California. He had performed in shows across the US and internationally for decades, from the 1950s to 1980s. His specially modified de Haviland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk airplanes, which he renamed “Super Chipmunks”, were well known in the air show circuit. By the time Top Gun’s production team hired Scholl to do in flight filming, he had thousands of hours of flight experience, and thousands of aerobatic stunts under his belt. For years, he had been the go-to aerial cameraman, and the first choice for any movie or TV scene that required aerial film.
On September 16th, 1985, Scholl was in his Pitts S-2 camera plane, filming dramatic backdrop scenes over the Pacific for the movie, when he deliberately entered into a spin in order to capture it on film with his onboard cameras. There was nothing special or particularly dangerous about the maneuver for a pilot of Scholl’s experience – he had done thousands of stunts that were more complex and riskier. However, the plane continued to spin as it plunged downwards past its planned recovery point, and for whatever reason, Scholl was unable to recover.
His last radio messages were “I have a problem“, when he was at an altitude of 3500 feet. Then, at 2500 feet, he radioed “I have a real problem“, before his plane plunged into the ocean about five miles west of Carlsbad, California. Investigators were never able to determine a cause for the crash, as the airplane vanished into the ocean depths, and neither it nor Scholl’s body were ever recovered.