Micron CEO Dies in Plane Crash

Steve Appleton, chairman and CEO of memory and semiconductor maker Micron, was killed in a small plane accident in Boise, Idaho, on Friday.

“Our hearts go out to his wife, Dalynn, his children and his family during this tragic time,” the company said in a statement.

Appleton was 51. He joined Micron in 1983 and became president and CEO in 1991.

The company said it expected to provide additional information later in the day.

Appleton was the only person on the single-engine prop Lancair experimental aircraft, which crashed between two runways, the Idaho Statesman newspaper reported on its website. The crash occurred at about 9 a.m. local time.

Reports were received that the airplane was on fire, county emergency dispatchers told the newspaper. Firefighters were sent to the scene to “extinguish the wreckage,” the newspaper reported.

Appleton was the pilot of a high-performance aerobatic plane that crashed in 2004 in the desert south of Boise, the newspaper said. Appleton and a passenger reportedly crawled from that wreckage and Appleton was flown to a hospital afterward.

Flags at the Micron campus in Boise were flying at half-mast on Friday, the newspaper said. Micron manufactures DRAM, NAND and NOR flash memory.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com