Singer-Actress Aaliyah Mourned

Jet, Sept 17, 2001

A horse-drawn glass carriage brought the casket carrying famed singer-actress Aaliyah to a church for a funeral service in New York City where she was mourned by her family and cheered by her fans.

Afterwards, the singer's mother, Diane Haughton, stood a few feet from the casket in tears and released a single white dove into the sky. Within seconds, another 21 doves were released--one for each year of the star's life.

Celebrities including Gladys Knight, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Usher, Lil' Kim, Jay-Z, Mike Tyson and movie producer Joel Silver were among those who attended the private farewell for the two-time Grammy-nominated singer.

A crowd of more than 1,000 fans stood outside St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church on New York's Upper East Side and cheered in tribute as the mourners, the singer's mother, brother Rashad, and actor Delroy Lindo walked in behind the cream-colored casket. Lindo co-starred with her in Romeo Must Die.

When the casket was brought out after the service, fans sang one of Aaliyah's hits, One In A Million.

The carriage, pulled by two cream-colored horses, brought the casket four blocks from the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home for the private funeral Mass. About 100 family members and close friends were invited.

Funeral home officials reported Aaliyah was interred at the Ferncliff Cemetery mausoleums in Westchester County, NY.

The day before the funeral, fans signed their names in a guest book outside the funeral home, a Manhattan institution that has handled arrangements for celebrities from John Lennon to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to rap star Notorious B.I.G.

At press time, a public memorial service that was to include a showing of Aaliyah's videos, performances and music was to be held outside a midtown restaurant.

Meanwhile, authorities investigating the ill-fated Bahamas flight carrying pop star Aaliyah and eight others (JET, Sept. 10), reported that the pilot did not have federal authorization to fly the plane and had been in court on a crack cocaine charge 12 days before the crash.

Luis Antonio Morales Blanes, 30, had not been listed as the pilot for the twin-engine Cessna by Blackhawk International Airways, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.

She said the company is cleared to fly charters under an air-taxi certificate, which authorizes a single pilot to fly the plane. Bergen said that pilot wasn't Blanes.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. U.S. and Bahamian aviation officials are investigating whether excess weight from baggage--among other possible causes--contributed to the crash.

The plane was bound for Opa-Locka, FL, when it went down shortly after takeoff on Abaco Island, north of Nassau. Everyone aboard was killed in the crash or died later of their injuries.

The Grammy-nominated singer had come to the Bahamas with the others to shoot a music video.

Celebrities Pay Tribute To Aaliyah

Fans and celebrity friends of 22-year-old rising star continue to mourn her tragic death in a small plane crash in the Bahamas where she making a video.

Soul singer GLADYS KNIGHT, Aaliyah's aunt by marriage, who asked the young performer to share the stage with her when she was 11, issued a heartfelt statement: "I remember the day Aaliyah was born ... it was a great, beautiful day. I was married to her uncle Barry Hankerson, and she immediately became a special part of my life, and I became Auntie Gladys to that wonderful little girl.... When she first performed with me in Las Vegas, she was still quite young, but she already had it--that spark the world would later see and fall in love with. She had a refreshing outlook for one so young, with true respect for her art and for her elders ... Her star had just begun to shine so brightly. Though she was ours for only a short time, what a time it was. I love Aaliyah, and I will miss her for the rest of my life."

DAMON DASH, Aaliyah's boyfriend and CEO of Roc-A-Fella Records, was "devastated" and could not get out of the bed when he heard that his sweetheart had died. The couple had reportedly planned to marry. Dash later told BET: "She was the best person I ever knew ... I never met a person like her in my life. Every day that we were together, we cherished. Every memory--every day was a special event, whether it was going to a store or going to a movie or just sitting in a house. Wherever we were was like our own little party, in our own little world."

BARRY HANKERSON, uncle of Aaliyah and CEO of Blackground Records, told "CNN Live:" "Aaliyah was the queen of our label. She was the one that started our label off and believed in us as a label. And we have additional artists, but everybody's so devastated ... She had this quiet kind of charisma. You know, the way she chose her songs. The way that she chose her performances in her videos were a bit understated, yet very pensive and very penetrating, and it was very remarkable that, in the very beginning she had a way that she wanted to sound and a way that she wanted to look and she stayed with...."