Alexander Onassis

He was the elder child of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis (1906 –1975) and his first wife, Athina Livanos (1929 –1974), herself a daughter of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros G. Livanos.

Alexander was named after his father's uncle, who was hanged by a Turkish military tribunal during their sacking of Smyrna in September 1922.

Alexander Socrates Onassis (April 30, 1948 – January 23, 1973) was an American-born Greek businessman.

He was the son of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis and his first wife Tina Livanos.

He and his sister Christina Onassis were upset by his father's marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy, and he was credited with attempting to improve the relationship between his father and Stavros Niarchos.

Born in New York City, Onassis was not formally educated and worked for several years for his father at his headquarters in Monaco.

The relationship between Onassis and his father experienced tensions as a result of his secret relationship with British model Fiona Campbell-Walter, former wife of Hans Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon.

He was later appointed the head of Olympic Aviation, a Greek regional airline owned by his father.

Onassis died in hospital as a result of injuries sustained in an air crash at Hellinikon International Airport at the age of 24.

The Alexander S. Onassis Foundation was established in his memory.

Alexander Socrates Onassis was born at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

Alexander's sister, Christina, was born in 1950.

Alexander had no formal schooling, but had been provided with a personal tutor and his own apartment from a young age.

In the mid 1960s, Onassis began a relationship with the French model Odile Rodin, a woman several years his senior.

Rodin was the widow of the Dominican playboy and diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa, and Rodin and Onassis lived together in Monaco.

Alexander failed his exams at a Paris lycée at age 16, and began working for his father at his Monaco headquarters in 1965.

Alexander earned a salary of $12,000 working for his father despite his father's great wealth.

Alexander was not an enthusiastic employee.

A fellow employee said that he seemed in no "great hurry to prove himself an Onassis."

Onassis also described himself as never having spent a day not "intimidated by the old man's wealth."

Alexander had taken his first flying lesson in 1967 and had accrued 1,500 flying hours by the time of his death.

In October 1968, Aristotle Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.

Alexander and his sister Christina were greatly upset by the union.

They had hoped that he might remarry their mother, which had seemed possible towards the end of their father's relationship with the Greek opera singer Maria Callas.

Alexander said: "My father loved the names and Jackie loved the money."

Despite never liking their stepmother, Alexander and his sister were friendly with her children, Caroline and John, and Alexander would occasionally let his stepbrother ride at the controls of his plane.

Aristotle Onassis's friend, John W. Meyer, credited Alexander with persuading his father to stop publicly accusing his business rival and former brother-in-law, Stavros Niarchos, of involvement in the death of Niarchos's former wife, Alexander's aunt Eugenia Livano-Niarchos.

Niarchos later married Onassis's mother, the sister of his former wife.

Aristotle’s second marriage exacerbated the tensions already inherent in his relationship with his son.

He also disapproved of Alexander's secret relationship with Fiona von Thyssen (née Campbell Walter), a British fashion model some 16 years his senior and the former wife of industrialist Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Alexander had first met Thyssen when he was 12, and as an 18-year-old had surprised his mother by inviting her to a dinner party, as she was one of his mother's friends.

Following the dinner party, Alexander and Thyssen went to a disco where she punched a fellow dancer in the face (who then fell to the floor) after he suggested that she was only with Alexander because of his father's wealth.

Alexander wanted to have a committed relationship with Thyssen from their first meeting, which she initially resisted, but the deep relationship which eventually developed between the pair was resisted by Alexander's mother, who constantly sought to sabotage it.

Alexander's father also sought to undermine his son's relationship by buying him a $2 million villa outside Athens, a gesture that Thyssen felt was an attempt to mold her into just another "Alexander object ... to be manipulated, brutalised and treated on any level and on any terms he chooses."

Thyssen only accepted gifts from Alexander if they were paid from the amount that he earned from working.

Possessing a professional pilot's license, he was appointed the President of Olympic Aviation, a regional Greek subsidiary of his father's Olympic Airways, in 1971.

Onassis' poor eyesight meant that he could not hold an air transport certificate, but could possess a commercial pilot certificate, allowing him to fly light planes and air taxis for emergency medical cases.

Alexander died on January 23, 1973, at the age of 24, from injuries sustained the previous day when his personal Piaggio P.136L-2 amphibious airplane, in which he was a passenger, crashed at Hellinikon International Airport in Athens.

Alexander was instructing a potential new pilot of the plane, Donald McCusker, at the time of the crash, in his role as President of Olympic Aviation.

Alexander and McCusker were accompanied by Donald McGregor, Onassis's regular pilot, who was recovering from an eye infection.