Actor, pilot Treat Williams dies in motorcycle accident

The Vermont State Police reported that the accident occurred after a driver in a Honda Element signaled a left turn, then turned left into the path of Williams’ motorcycle. Williams collided with the other vehicle and was thrown from his motorcycle. The other driver was not injured.

Richard Treat Williams was born December 1, 1951, in Stamford, Connecticut. He learned to fly in high school. Williams’ high-school football coach was a flight instructor who offered in 1969 to teach him to fly. He learned in a Piper Super Cub at Candlelight Farms Airport, a grass strip near Danbury, Connecticut. “I was scared to death during that first lesson,” he told AOPA Pilot in 2011, “but that didn’t last. During my first solo, the Cub exploded off the ground. I couldn’t hear the engine because I was screaming so loudly, so joyfully.”

He earned a commercial pilot certificate, a flight instructor certificate, an instrument rating, a multiengine rating, and a rotorcraft rating. He also held a Cessna Citation type rating. At various times in his life he owned a Piper Cub, a Piper Cherokee 180, a Piper Seneca II, a Piper Navajo Chieftain, and a North American AT–6 Texan. He often used an airplane to commute to film locations. When filming Steven Spielberg’s movie 1941, he flew his Piper Cherokee from Teterboro, New Jersey, to Burbank, California. “It took a million hours but was a fantastic flight,” he said. Most recently Williams owned a 1941 Piper J–3 Cub.

Williams worked on stage, in television, and in more than 60 films. Most recently he had a recurring role in the CBS drama series Blue Bloods and was part of the main cast of the Hallmark Channel series Chesapeake Shores.

A longtime AOPA member, Williams was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2014, at which time he had logged more than 10,000 hours.

“We are still in shock,” a spokesman for Living Legends of Aviation said on June 13. “He was not only a great actor and human, but one of the most passionate aviation advocates in the world of aviation.”

Williams wrote a children’s book, Air Show!, presenting a child’s perspective on the joy of flight. His Chieftain was illustrated on the front cover. Experimental Aircraft Association Director of Communications Dick Knapinski said EAA AirVenture served as an inspiration for the book. The actor had attended AirVenture several times with his family, Knapinski said June 13. Williams also was involved with an EAA chapter when he had a residence in Heber City, Utah.

“He really was dedicated to aviation and to passing along that love of aviation,” Knapinski said;. “Any time you lose an aviator, it’s always a loss, but especially one who had a public platform who talked about his love of flight and his willingness to share it with other people. Those people are great ambassadors.”

“It is incumbent upon us,” Williams said in 2011, “to pass the torch, to eagerly share our enthusiasm with those not yet addicted to the heady inebriation we feel during every takeoff.”