A look back at some of Hollywood’s biggest on-set tragedies following Alec Baldwin prop gun accident

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Behind the glamour, filming for Hollywood movies is notoriously dangerous, with plane crashes, explosions, falling structures and high speed chases all responsible for cutting short the lives of stunt doubles, actors and directors. 

This was brought into sharp focus again on Thursday by the death of photography director Halyna Hutchins who was accidentally killed by Alec Baldwin with a prop gun on set in New Mexico.

The circumstances of how the weapon fired a lethal projectile remain unclear, but blank rounds are known for being sealed with paper wadding to build up pressure which can lead to fatal injury due to the hot gasses and unburned powder expelled.

Actor Jon-Erik Hexum died on the set of TV series Cover Up in 1984 when he accidentally shot himself while playing with a prop gun between takes, not realising it was still loaded with blanks. Wadding struck him in the temple, fracturing his skull and causing brain hemorrhaging which proved fatal. 

The tragedy has grim echoes of the blank round that killed actor Brandon Lee on the set of the 1994 film The Crow, who was killed when a fragment of bullet lodged inside the gun was discharged when a blank was fired. It struck his abdomen with the same force as a live round.

Often stunt doubles are used for the most dangerous action, putting their lives on the line for the perfect shot, scaling heights, flying planes low to the ground and hanging out of moving vehicles. 

But film sets, with explosives, falling buildings and vertigo-inducing staging locations, have also claimed the lives of actors, directors and crew members. 

Here MailOnline recalls some of the worst tragedies to strike on set: 

The Crow, 1994 – Dummy round kills actor Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee, was a rising star before one of the most tragic deaths in Hollywood history cut his life short.

In the scene, Lee’s character walks into his apartment and discovers his fiancée being beaten and raped, before a thug fires a Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 Magnum revolver at Lee’s character.

In the shooting of an earlier scene, the prop gun – which was a real Smith & Wesson revolver – had been loaded with improperly crafted dummy rounds, cartridges which have the powder charges removed so that in close-ups the revolver appears loaded with normal ammunition.

The crew failed to remove the primer from the cartridges and at some point, prior to the fatal incident, one of the rounds was fired.

Although there was no powder cartridge, the energy from the ignited primer was able to separate the bullet from the casing and push it up into the gun barrel where it got lodged – known as a ‘squib load.’

In the fatal scene, the gun was to be fired from 12ft away, with dummy cartridges being replaced by blanks, containing powder and primer but no bullets.

But the gun was not properly checked and cleared before the blank was fired by the actor playing the thug and the .44 bullet lodged inside the weapon was discharged and struck Lee in the abdomen. 

After six hours of unsuccessful emergency surgery, Lee succumbed to his injuries at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina at just 28.

Lee’s relatives took to Twitter Thursday to mourn the tragedy on the set of Baldwin’s movie. 

‘Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on Rust,’ read a tweet from the account, which is run by Lee’s sister Sharon Lee. ‘No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.’

Lee, the son of martial-arts icon Bruce Lee, died at the age of 28 on March 31, 1993 while filming The Crow in North Carolina. He was fatally hit with a .44-caliber slug after another actor fired a prop gun at him that was thought to have been loaded with blanks.

Motherless Brooklyn, 2018 – Set fire kills FDNY firefighter

Tragedy struck the set of Edward Norton’s directorial debut Motherless Brooklyn in March 2018, when fire broke out on the set.

The FDNY was called in to contain the blaze, with decorated fireman Michael Davidson, 37, who had been on the FDNY for 15 years, dying on the set.

He had been cited for bravery four times during his tenure, leaving behind a wife and four daughters.

The fire broke out in the basement of 773 St. Nicholas Ave., while the film crew was inside the building on the ground floor, with actors dressed up in period costumes for a scene in the movie, set in the 1950s.  

The five-story building is home to the former St. Nick’s Jazz Pub, which closed in 2011.

‘We were inside when the fire started and everybody came out panicking’, actress and model Angelica Guillen tweeted after the incident, adding that they ‘were all there and we are safe’ while offering her condolences to Davidson’s family.

Davidson was reportedly the first fireman into the building and suffered serious injuries after becoming separated from his crew.

New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro at the time said the blaze had erupted in the basement about 11pm and that crews went down the stairs to fight the fire with Davidson as nozzelman’.

‘They encountered heavy fire and they did the best they could. The fire continued to advance. Units were forced to back out of the building. Somehow while backing out of that building, firefighter Davidson was separated from the rest of the unit.

‘The search ensued. Members tried desperately to find firefighter Davidson and when they did he was unconscious.

‘Despite the best efforts of the members of our fire fighting forces, EMS and here at the hospital, they were unable to revive Michael and he perished.

‘Our entire city mourns his loss.’

It took more than 175 firefighters, and dozens of vehicles to get the fire extinguished by 2.30am the next morning.

The Expendables 2, 2012 – Explosion kills stuntman on rubber boat

The Expendables 2 starred Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li and had an explosion scene filmed on the water in Bulgaria. 

Stuntman Ken Lui was killed in October 2011 while performing in a rubber boat on Ognyanovo dam, just outside the capital, Sofia.

The 26-year-old Beijing native did not survive after suffering wounds from a nearby explosion in the Stallone vehicle.

Bulgarian press at the time reported that Stallone’s stuntman was seriously injured during the explosion that killed Kun Liu. 

Millennium films denied reports that the doubles for Stallone and Li had been involved in the accident. 

Liu’s parents, Liu Zong Yu Liu and Bai Yan Mei, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2012 against Millennium Films and the movie’s stunt coordinator, following their son’s death.

They were eventually awarded HK$195,000 (£19,400) after a protracted court battle lasting four years.  

The Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1982 – Vic Morrow and a child actor decapitated by a helicopter’s rotor blades, a second child crushed by the aircraft 

The tragic accident that killed actor Vic Morrow and children Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, resulted in major filming code changes.

The scene was supposed to feature Morrow’s character being transported back to Vietnam, where he was supposed to protect two Vietnamese children.

A helicopter flying above Morrow and the two children was sent crashing to the ground by an ill-timed explosion during filming of a chase scene.

The helicopter fell to the ground, its main rotor blades decapitating Morrow and the child actor Le, while one of the aircraft’s landing skid crushed the second child Chen. 

The filming location was the ranch Indian Dunes in Santa Clarita, California, that was used throughout the 1980s for such movies and shows as The Color Purple, Escape From New York, MacGyver, and China Beach.

Its wide-open area set on 600 acres enabled larger pyrotechnic displays and the shooting of night scenes without the interruption of city lights.

The scene was filmed at night with Morrow’s character to carry the two children out of a deserted village and across a shallow river while being hunted down by American soldiers in a low-flying helicopter.

Morrow was standing in the river when a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter that was being flown by Vietnam war veteran Dorcey Wingo hovered 25ft off the ground.

Wingo was turning the chopper through 180 degrees when a mortar effect was detonated while the tail-rotor was above the explosion. 

The tail-rotor was blown off the back of the helicopter causing the low-flying chopper to spin wildly out of control.

The helicopter fell on top of Morrow and the children, decapitating the actor and Le, while Chen was crushed to death by the aircraft’s right landing skid. All three died instantly. 

Director John Landis, Associate producer George Folsey Jr., pilot Wingo, production manager Dan Allingham, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were tried and acquitted on charges of manslaughter in a nine-month trial in 1986 and 1987.

The families of the children later collected millions of dollars from several law suits.

In October 1984, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the explosion had been too near to the helicopter and this had been caused by a failure of coordination between the pilot and Landis.

The incident led to legal action that lasted for over a decade, and lead to stringent changes in safety regulations that had not previously been in place.

Cover Up, 1984 – Blank bullet cartridge kills actor Jon-Erik Hexum 

Cast and crew were filming the seventh episode of the 1984 TV series Cover Up, when tragedy struck on October 12, 1984.

Actor Jon-Erik Hexum, 26, was playing an undercover CIA agent who was posing as a male model.

He was given a .44 magnum loaded with blanks and the day was beset with delays as the director sought out the perfect take.

Hexum grew frustrated by the protracted filming and between scenes he began playing around with the gun, simulating Russian roulette.

He had unloaded all but one of the blank rounds and was spinning the cylinder around before re-engaging it and, apparently unaware of the danger, put the gun up to his head.

Blanks use paper or wadding to seal gunpowder inside a cartridge, which means that huge pressure is built up which can send lethal fragments of whatever is inside the barrel out, including unexploded powder, as well as searing hot gasses.

Paper wadding shot out of the barrel and shattered Hexum’s skull, causing massive hemorrhaging in the brain. 

The actor was rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center where he underwent emergency operations, but he passed away just five days later.

The death was ruled as accidental. His mother later reached an out of court settlement with 20th Century Fox Television and Glen A. Larson Productions. 

Deadpool 2, 2017 – Stuntwoman Joi ‘SJ’ Harris dies in motorcycle crash 

The production of the highly-anticipated Deadpool sequel was tarnished when stunt motorcycle rider lost control of her bike and fatally crashed.

Joi ‘SJ’ Harris was filming a stunt sequence at Shaw Tower in Vancouver, when she lost control and crashed into a plate glass window.

It was Harris’ first gig as a stunt rider, though she was an experienced rider, and was the first African-American female professional road racer.

Harris was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, because her character, Domino, played by Zazie Beetz, didn’t wear one in the scene.

Details of an investigation report by WorkSafeBC found that the Harris was killed in a freak, low-speed accident.

‘A temporary worksite had been setup to record a film scene for a movie production. The site had been cordoned off from general public and traffic by the Vancouver Police Department,’ the report said.

‘The worker had been rehearsing a stunt scene that involved driving a motorcycle, Dictate 939 Hyperstrada, out of the open doors of a building, across a concrete pad and down a ramp that had been built over three stairs and coming to a stop on the stair landing.’

It went on to say that during the initial shooting of the scene Harris continued driving beyond the planned stopping spot on the stairway landing and continued to drive down a second ramp which was built over the bottom stairs and across the road.

It concluded: ‘The motorcycle struck the concrete sidewalk curb, the worker was thrown off the motorcycle and propelled through a plate glass window of a building.’

Josh Brolin said afterwards: ‘We had somebody pass away on Deadpool 2 and it was an absolute freak accident.

‘The woman was such a wonderful woman … it wasn’t even a stunt, it was a freak accident.

‘It was a terrible thing that happened. Was it a nano-decision that she made in order to save the bike and this, you know what I mean?’ he continued.

‘You could look into it all [these ways], but sometimes things just happen that are tragic.’ 

Catch-22, 1970 – aerial photographer falls out of B-52 Bomber while filming over Gulf of Mexico

Aerial photographer John Jordan was killed while capturing footage from a B-25 Bomber over the Gulf of Mexico.

Jordan was an experienced cameraman and renowned for his fearless ability to achieve aerial shots that nobody else could, leaning out of helicopters with a harness securing him. 

He even lost a foot while filming for James Bond film You Only Live Twice when he got too close to a Bell 47 helicopter. 

It was this gung-ho attitude which would be his downfall on the filming of Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 starring Orson Welles.

Jordan was shooting from the open door of a B-52 Bomber and refused to wear a harness as they flew over the Gulf of Mexico.

A sudden gust of wind caused the plane to tilt sideways and Jordan was sucked out of the door, plunging 4,000ft to his death into the sea. 

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, 2017 – Crew member killed when unsecured car slid off rotating platform

Crew member Ricardo Cornelius was killed when an unsecured car slid off a rotating platform and crashed into him.

Gone in 60 Seconds 2, 1989 – Director H.B. Halicki killed by falling water tower 

Director H.B. Halicki was killed when a water tower, which was supposed to dramatically tumble to the ground for a scene, fell unexpectedly when a support cable snapped.

He died instantly and the film was halted and never made it to production.

Comes A Horseman, 1978 – Stunt double killed while being dragged by horse, striking his head on fence post

Stunt double Jim Sheppard was taking part in the final scene where the lead character is supposed to be killed being dragged by a horse.

Sheppard’s head smashed into a fence post during the scene and he was killed. The scene was still used in the final cut of the movie, although it cuts right before Sheppard hits his head.

xXx, 2002 – Parasailing stuntman dies after striking his head on bridge

Harry O’Connor, Vin Diesel’s stunt double, was parasailing when he struck his head on part of the Palacky Bridge in Prague. Parts of O’Connor’s final moments made it into the film which is dedicated to his memory.

The Dark Knight, 2008 – Stuntman killed while hanging out of Batmobile during crash

Stuntman Conway Wickliffe was rehearsing a scene in the Batmobile and was leaning out of the window when the car’s driver smashed into a tree at 20 miles per hour. The driver escaped without injury, but Wickliffe suffered a severe head injury and died at the scene.

Top Gun, 1986 – Pilot dies while performing a spin over the sea

Famed stunt pilot Art Scholl, who also contributed aerial photography, was flying his Pitts S-2 camera plane as part of an aerial stunt sequence.

He entered a spin maneuver but was unable to maintain altitude.

‘I have a problem. I have a real problem,’ Scholl said.

The plane crashed into the sea and was never recovered, it remains a mystery to this day what went wrong.

Vampire In Brooklyn, 1995 – Angela Basset’s stunt double falls 42ft to her death

Angela Basset’s stunt double Sonja Davis fell 42ft to her death while filming a stunt for the horror-comedy starring Eddie Murphy.