Which boxing champion died in an Air France Constellation?

Air France Flight 009 was a scheduled service between Paris-Orly Airport and New York with a stopover on the island of Santa Maria, in the Azores. It was operated by a Lockheed L-749 Constellation registered F-BAZN, which took off from Orly at 20:05 on 27 October 1949 with 11 crew and 37 passengers. At 02:51 on the 28th, the pilot reported flying at 3,000 feet (910 m) and having the airport in sight. There were no further communications. The search involved eight aircraft and several ships, and the wreckage was found on a ridge between Pico da Vara and Pico Redondo, on the island of São Miguel, 60 miles (97 km) from the airport. All 48 people on board died.

Among the victims was French boxer Marcel Cerdan, former world middleweight champion. He was travelling to New York to meet singer Édith Piaf, with whom he was in a relationship. His death on a flight headed to meet her made the accident one of the most remembered in postwar France.

On the same aircraft was French violinist Ginette Neveu, whose Stradivarius violin was destroyed in the crash. Also killed were artist Bernard Boutet de Monvel and Kay Kamen, the American executive responsible for marketing Walt Disney Company products. The passenger list reflects who crossed the Atlantic by air in the late 1940s: a journey that was still expensive, with mandatory technical stopovers such as the Azores, which Air France's Constellations covered on scheduled service between Europe and the United States.