NASCAR's Greg Biffle killed in plane crash. Here are some other athletes who died in the air

Retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was believed to be on the plane that crashed outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday, killing all seven people aboard. He joins a somber roll of athletes who died in plane or helicopter crashes, including fellow race car drivers Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison, who died in separate accidents in 1993. Here are some of the sports figures who died in aviation accidents:

The Wisconsin native was NASCAR’s 1986 Rookie of the Year in 1992 became the first Northerner and first college graduate to win the drivers’ championship, edging Bill Elliott in the standings in what was then the closest finish in the circuit’s history. Kulwicki, 38, two executives from Hooters, his sponsor, and the pilot died in April 1993 with their small jet crashed on approach to landing in Tennessee. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the pilot failed to clear the engine inlet of ice.

The 1992 Daytona 500 winner and son of ’83 Cup champion Bobby Allison is a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, like his father. The younger Allison was piloting a helicopter that crashed in the infield at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. An NTSB investigation blamed the July 1993 crash on the 32-year-old pilot's inexperience.

After the 1993 season, Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace completed a “Polish victory lap” — Kulwicki's celebration in which he circled the track clockwise — holding up flags with the numbers of the two deceased drivers.

The winner of three major golf tournaments and the reigning U.S. Open champion at the time, Stewart died in 1999 when his private plane lost cabin pressure, killing all four passengers and both pilots. The plane, which was supposed to take him to the season-ending tournament in Dallas, continued on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into a field in South Dakota. He was 42.

The PGA Tour presents an award in his name to the golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s character, sportsmanship and commitment to charity.

The Pittsburgh right fielder and humanitarian was bringing emergency supplies to the survivors of a Nicaraguan earthquake when the overloaded and poorly maintained plane crashed on takeoff from Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve, 1972.

At 38, he was a 15-time All-Star, four-time National League batting champion regular-season and 1966 NL MVP who led the Pirates to two World Series titles. The Baseball Hall of Fame waived its five-year eligibility waiting period to induct him the next summer. Major League Baseball’s named its award for character and sportsmanship after him.

The 1970 AL Rookie of the Year and the league’s 1976 Most Valuable Player, the New York Yankees catcher was the team’s first captain since Lou Gehrig. Having bought a plane so he could fly home to his family in Ohio on off-days, Munson was practicing landings when he clipped a tree on approach to Akron-Canton Regional Airport. Two others aboard survived the 1979 crash, but the 32-year-old ballplayer was paralyzed on impact and suffocated in the ensuing fire.

The Argentinian striker was the top scorer for Nantes in three straight Ligue 1 seasons before he was sent to Cardiff City for a 15 million pound ($19 million) transfer fee. He was on his way to his new team when his plane crashed in the English Channel in 2019. Sala, 28, was found three weeks later.

The five-time NBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and 2018 Academy Award winner was traveling with his 13-year-old daughter and seven others to a girls' basketball tournament when their helicopter crashed outside of Los Angeles in January 2020. He was 41.

The Lakers retired both numbers he wore during the career in which he was the team's all-time leading scorer. The NBA named its All-Star Game MVP award after him, and the WNBA presents the Kobe & Gigi Bryant Advocacy Award for contributions to women's and girls' basketball.

The only world heavyweight champion to retire undefeated, Marciano held the title from 1952-56. After his boxing career made him a celebrity and an Italian-American icon, he had appeared in films and television and was friends with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He died at 45 when an inexperienced pilot crashed into a tree in bad weather three miles from an Iowa airfield in August 1969. The title character in Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” franchise was partially inspired by Marciano.

The Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies All-Star was a two-time winner of the Cy Young Award who threw a perfect game in the 2010 regular season and a no-hitter that postseason. He was 40 in 2017 when he crashed a sport plane he had purchased a month earlier into the Gulf of Mexico. The NTSB found that he was impaired by high levels of amphetamines and was attempting extreme aerobic stunts when he lost control of the aircraft.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

First responders tend to the scene of a reported plane crash at a regional airport in Statesville, N.C., Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

This screengrab made from video provided by WSOC shows firefighting crews responding to a reported plane crash at a regional airport in Statesville, N.C., erupting in a large fire, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (WSOC via AP)

Greg Biffle holds his daughter, Emma, before the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012, in Hampton, Ga. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — TikTok has signed agreements with three major investors — Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX — to form a new TikTok U.S. joint venture, ensuring the popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States.

The deal is expected to close on Jan. 22, according to an internal memo seen by The Associated Press. In the communication, CEO Shou Zi Chew confirmed to employees that ByteDance and TikTok signed the binding agreements with the consortium.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued dedication and tireless work. Your efforts keep us operating at the highest level and will ensure that TikTok continues to grow and thrive in the U.S. and around the world,” Chew wrote in the memo to employees. “With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been—firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community.”

Half of the new TikTok U.S. joint venture will be owned by a group of investors — among them Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, who will each hold a 15% share. 19.9% of the new app will be held by ByteDance itself, and another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, according to the memo. The memo did not say who the other investors are and both TikTok and the White House declined to comment.

The U.S. venture will have a new, seven-member majority-American board of directors, the memo said. It will also be subject to terms that “protect Americans’ data and U.S. national security.”

U.S. user data will be stored locally in a system run by Oracle. The memo said U.S. users will continue “enjoying the same experience as today” and advertisers will continue to serve global audiences with no impact from the deal.

TikTok’s algorithm — the secret sauce that powers its addictive video feed — will be retrained on U.S. user data to “ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the memo said. The U.S. venture will also oversee content moderation and policies within the country.

American officials have previously warned that ByteDance’s algorithm is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.

The algorithm has been a central issue in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But the U.S. regulation passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cuts ties — specifically the algorithm — with ByteDance.

The deal marks the end of years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.

Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, continued to extend the deadline for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement. The third came in June, then another in September, which Trump said would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.

TikTok has more than 170 million users in the U.S. About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published this fall.

Shares of Oracle jumped $9.07, or 5%, to $189.10 in after-hours trading.

FILE - In this July 21, 2020 file photo, a man opens social media app 'TikTok' on his cell phone, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)