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Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot has died in a plane crash
https://www.thegamer.com/ubisoft-co-founder-claude-guillemot-dead/ https://www.thegamer.com/ubisoft-co-founder-claude-guillemot...
- cpncrunch 3mo agoNon paywall source: https://www.reuters.com/world/ubisofts-co-founder-claude-guillemot-dies-plane-crash-2026-06-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/ubisofts-co-founder-claude-gui...
- SoftTalker 3mo agoPaywall there for me, or "allow ads." Other than the fact that the crash happened, there doesn't seem to be any more detailed news yet, so the headline says pretty much what there is to know at this time.
- dang 3mo agoThanks, we've changed to that from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-20/ubisoft-co-founder-claude-guillemot-dies-in-air-crash-at-age-69 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-20/ubisoft-c... above.
- cf100clunk 3mo agoSimilarly, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608732
- comrade1234 3mo agoPersonal aircraft. The great equalizer.
- pixl97 3mo agoSeems aircraft have been hard on tech this week.
- master_crab 3mo ago“Doctor killer” for a reason. It can be monotonous and degrading, but commercial air is the safe way to travel.
- altmanaltman 3mo agoIt was a Cessna 421 so its not really about travel but flying as a hobby most likely.
- weaksauce 3mo agoprobably a hobby but a 421 is a high performance dual engine with a pressurized cabin... that's a lot of plane and dual engines are difficult to fly with a lot of technical knowledge and practice to handle an engine out procedure safely. this kind of plane very commonly kills doctors and other high earning individuals that don't have the time to keep their time in the plane to stay recent. a lot of time people do buy multi engine planes for travel so it's not certain it was just a hobby.
- khuey 3mo agoThere's a saying among pilots that on a twin piston (which the 421 is) the second engine is there to get you to the crash site faster.
- kylecazar 3mo agoI clicked a news article a few months ago about a crash... Google has since decided I need to know about all future aviation accidents. I was surprised how frequent it happens. Two brothers were killed in a Cessna just the other day. I suppose it's a combination of lower maintenance standards and pilot experience, definitely doesn't make me want to hop in a small plane anytime soon.
- ultrarunner 3mo agoCounterintuitively, it's probably the unrealistically high maintenance standards that lead to 1) no available qualified mechanics, and 2) incredibly high prices, resulting in 3) deferring whatever is possible to defer. This is the situation in the US; I imagine costs are doubly impactful in a country like France.
- NordSteve 3mo agoIt's certainly possible to maintain GA aircraft to a high standard and not break the bank. For example, a flying club I'm in has Cessna 172s for $116/hr wet with no-compromises maintenance.
- ultrarunner 3mo agoIf you're not directly involved in the maintenance, I am skeptical. For example, many flying clubs only exist because they have members who are A&Ps / IAs, who maintain the plane in consideration of membership. That's a workaround for the problem I'm presenting. I won't say it's impossible, but it's increasingly difficult and location-dependent.
- vwcx 3mo agowhat's the club buy in and annual fee? I instruct out of a 150 and $125/hr is the cheapest I can justify charging.
- NordSteve 3mo ago$13800 transferable membership and $220/mo.
- jmartrican 3mo agoI worked for a small successful company in the pharmaceutical industry. One of their founders died in a crash in his small personal aircraft. He was a really nice guy and very charismatic. I was not working there when the accident happened, but I was sad to hear about it. I agree with OP's sentiment.
- speedgoose 3mo ago[flagged]
- nullable_bool 3mo agoIm going to put my money on the latter.
- smt88 3mo agoIt seems like you’re just trying to say he was a bad guy and you’re glad he’s dead, which is a valid way to feel, but doesn’t seem like the right type of comment for HN. Maybe framing it as, “For those who don’t know this name, here’s why I do:” would be more interesting and helpful.
- speedgoose 3mo agoNo, I’m not glad he is dead.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Insanity 3mo agoI briefly entertained flying planes as a hobby. I live next to a small-ish local airfield and a coworker of mine got his license there. Then I learned more about it, and there's way to many accidents like these for me to be comfortable with the risk I'd be taking. I have no issue with flying commercial planes, but I guess I don't trust myself _and_ the smaller planes enough to do this. RIP Claude, horrible way to die.
- miketery 3mo agoI got my glider license at 16 and private at 17. Majority of accidents are human error. Though yes an accident with a plane is much costlier than one with a car. I encourage you to read NTSB accident reports. The work the investigators do and the reports they assemble are unparalleled. There are also good parallels to complex systems in general.
- gpm 3mo agoIt seems like unjustifiable hubris to assume that I'm significantly less susceptible to human error than the average person that decides to become a pilot.
- applfanboysbgon 3mo agoIf you're even thinking about the danger, it's absolutely justifiable to believe you're above the average already. The average person has zero regard for their own safety; governments have to literally force people to wear seatbelts in cars or helmets on motorcycles because they won't do it without threat of financial penalty.
- toss1 3mo agoIndeed most of them wont do it without threat OTOH, there are those, particularly those who actually get training and practice in the high-performance zone, who realize the physics of the situation, and feel positively naked driving out without a seatbelt/harness, or helmet where appropriate.
- brador 3mo agoWhy don't planes have parachutes? like a huge parachute that pops on stall to slowly descent the plane?
- dxdm 3mo agoSome do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst...
- psvv 3mo agoFunny, I put parachutes on my airplanes in kerbal space program (as a safety feature) but never considered what the real-life analogue to that would be. Turns out it's very similar!
- MomsAVoxell 3mo agoJust so its clear, Kerbal is the analog.
- lolc 3mo agoAnalogue means having the same function. It does not say which came first.
- MomsAVoxell 3mo agoFalse. Analogue does not mean having the same function. Analogue, in this sense, means some action or thing seen as comparable to another. If something is analogous of, or to something, it is proportional to something else. The proportionality describes a primary/secondary relationship. If two actions/things are entirely comparable - i.e. orthagonality approximating 0.0 - then they are not analogues, but rather equivalents. Something may be a poor comparison to another thing, but still be an analogue - albeit, a poor analogue in comparison to some other, original, instance.
- BoredPositron 3mo agoBad two weeks for aviation.
- zahlman 3mo agoHmm? What else did I miss?
- toomuchtodo 3mo agoJoshua Baer, founder and CEO of Austin's Capital Factory VC firm, killed in plane crash near Laredo, Texas. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=capital%20factory%20Joshua%20Baer%20crash&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- myvoiceismypass 3mo agoOliver Tree is a musician who died in a helicopter crash recently too.
- BoredPositron 3mo agoFrom here https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/cZE1TCwb2B https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/cZE1TCwb2B June 8: A Gulfstream G200 crashed while landing at La Romana International in the DR, it was on the way to pick up former MLB player Yadier Molina, but it had to make an emergency landing. Both pilots, the only occupants, died. June 10: A Pakistan Army Aviation Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad. All 22 on board perished. June 11: Turkish Airlines Flight TK2430, a Boeing 777-300ER, collided with a ground radar antenna while taxiing to its gate after landing at Antalya Airport when the aircraft turned onto a taxiway too small for 777's. Despite the damage to the aircraft, only 1 of 267 souls aboard were injured. June 11: United Airlines Flight 1275, a Boeing 737, was delayed after a swarm of bees stuck to its right wing. The pilots decided to take off with the insects still on said wing; they all cleared off once the aircraft got airborne. No bees entered the aircraft and no injuries were reported. June 11: A Piper PA-36 collided with a tower near Barrelman Airport and crashed. The former president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA), Rick Boardman, died. June 11: A Cirrus SR20 crashed into a house after taking off from Portsmouth, Ohio. Only the pilot was killed, and both occupants of the home escaped uninjured. June 11: A Zhonglian F-27 light helicopter suffered a tail-boom failure and crashed during a test flight in Jiangsu. The pilot and passenger survived with non life-threatening injuries. June 12: SriLankan Airlines Flight UL-606, an Airbus A330, had its engine struck by lightning just after takeoff from Colombo International; the plane landed safely and no injuries were reported. June 13: Singapore Airlines Flight SQ114, a Boeing 737-800, suffered burst tires upon landing at Kuala Lumper International; the plane managed to stop on the runway, and no injuries were reported. June 13: An Indian Air Force An-32 crashed while attempting to land Jorhat Air Force Base in Assam. 5 of the 6 people on board died, with the co-pilot, as of writing, claimed to have been the only survivor. June 13: A US Marine Corp F/A-18 Hornet Crashed in Washington State near Rimlock Lake. The pilot safely ejected and survived. June 14: Two helicopters collided mid-air over Brazil. All six people on board both helicopters perished, including American songwriter and rapper, Oliver Tree. June 14: A Pacific Aerospace 750XL, N221BN, crashed shortly after takeoff from Butler Memorial Airport in Butler, Missouri. The pilot and 11 skydivers on board perished. June 14: A Piper PA-28, N15564, crashed shortly after takeoff from Key West, Florida. Initially, 5 people were reported to be on board, but it was found out that only 2 people were; both survived. June 14: Delta Airlines Flight 2905, a Boeing 737-900, collided with a catering truck at Seattle-Tacoma International; no injuries were reported. June 15: A Russian Tu-22 bomber crashed in Siberia during a training flight. As of writing, everyone on board has been reported to have ejected and survived. June 15: A Pakistan Air Force trainer aircraft crashed in Pakistan's Mardan district. As of writing, both of the pilots were killed, and at least three motorists were injured. June 15: A Van's RV-3A crashed into a cow field about 15 miles north of Lakeland, FL. The pilot was killed. There were some more in the last three days as well...
- iwontberude 3mo agoSo many nerds here in Silicon Valley love to fly small aircraft, it’s an autistic comorbidity. You’ll never catch me acting so foolish.
- GlacierFox 3mo ago"autistic comorbidity" Wtf haha. Everything's autism nowadays isn't it. Perhaps it's just an alignment of having the money to buy a small plane and being interested in planes.
- infecto 3mo agoI would argue it has a much closer intersection with wealth.
- marshray 3mo agoWhen/where I grew up (the United States), private planes were thought of as auto-un-aliving machines for Doctors and Dentists. Boomers and older generations tended to think of them as part of rural life. E.g. farmers would sometimes put an airstrip on a spare field. There's an episode of Mayberry (The Andy Griffith Show) in which Aunt Bea gets her pilots license.
- schmookeeg 3mo agoYour username is painfully not checking out here. :P
- toomuchtodo 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Guillemot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Guillemot
- m0llusk 3mo agoThis sort of thing is one of the reasons Elon became so important at Tesla. The other key players died in a freakish plane crash, apparently hitting transmission lines at low altitude which is not something parachutes would likely have helped with. https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employees/ https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employ...
- sourcegrift 3mo agoAnd he doomed tesla which was earlier soaring to become a trillion dollar company
- lstodd 3mo agomemento mori
- ThaFresh 3mo ago[flagged]
- dang 3mo agoPlease don't do this here.
- seanvk 3mo agoMy Dad, a flight instructor, loves to remind me that there are bold pilots and old pilots. But there are no old bold pilots.
- lostlogin 3mo agoChuck Yeager seemed pretty bold and died at 96. Yay, one old bold pilot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager
- EvanAnderson 3mo agoChuck Yeager was a very skilled pilot with inhumanly good vision and ridiculously good luck. He's also a good demonstration of survivorship bias.
- delichon 3mo agoIf you think you have the skill and luck of Chuck Yeager, by all means, go fly boldly. One of my old coworkers was a retired navy captain who used to be an instructor at Top Gun and had hundreds of night carrier landings. He told me that he'd have to be forced at gunpoint to fly on a small general aviation airplane, it's just too dangerous.
- serf 3mo ago>One of my old coworkers was a retired navy captain who used to be an instructor at Top Gun and had hundreds of night carrier landings. He told me that he'd have to be forced at gunpoint to fly on a small general aviation airplane, it's just too dangerous. it's just not that simple. Some of the smallest GA craft are the safest by the numbers until you group them into the same category as famously sophisticated or hard to maintain models. if it were me i'd be worried about the bigger GA planes. More to go wrong, more to distract the pilot, more reliance on the pilot being able to manage multiple engines and special equipment, more difficult take-offs, etc.
- saghm 3mo agoMaybe their dad only started saying this in the past three decades
- simonebrunozzi 3mo agoSad for this. I am wondering: what's the data on how safe, or unsafe, "private" planes are, e.g. compared to commercial jets?
- schmookeeg 3mo agoYou'll want the McSpadden report (formerly the Nall report) here [1] Pay attention to the accidents per 100,000 hours in commercial vs non-commercial fixed wing. Commercial is about 10-40x safer. [1] https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institute/accident-analysis/richard-g-mcspadden-report/mcspadden-report-figure-view/?category=all&year=2023&condition=all&report=true https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/air-safety-institut...
- addaon 3mo agoIn order of safest to least safe: commercial jets, automobiles, general aviation aircraft, motorcycles, messing around with Jim.
- marshray 3mo agoActually he survived, he just has to turn on 39 more radio transmitter towers before he can be rescued. (and thank you for Far Cry Primal)
- wetpaws 3mo ago[dead]
- h4kunamata 3mo ago>Guillemot helped transform Ubisoft from a mail-order software business into one of the world's largest video game companies Wrong, Guillemot and his family greedy, destroyed one of the most successful gaming companies in the gaming history. If you have been following the gaming space within the last 5 years or so, it is safe to say that he won't be missed, and it opens the door for Tecent to bring the Ubisoft back to its glory if that is even possible at this stage.