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- Michael A. Chowdry (1954-2001) was a Pakistani-American businessman who became the founder of American-based cargo carrier Atlas Air in 1992. He was on the Forbes 400 list with a net worth of $920 million, ranked among the richest American businessmen of Pakistani heritage before his death in a plane crash in 2001. Born in Pakistan in a Muslim Punjabi family, Chowdry emigrated to England aged 15. He was a son of Chowdry Akbar Buttar; a government bureaucrat. In 1976, he moved to the United States where he graduated from the University of Minnesota Crookston in 1978 with a degree in Agricultural Aviation. He started his aviation career flying crop dusters and selling Piper airplanes to cover his college tuition. Chowdry expanded his business into buying and selling landing rights at constrained airports in the early 1980s. In 1984, he started a company named Aeronautics Leasing, which leased passenger airplanes to major carriers such as Pan American, British Airways and Trans World Airlines. In 1992, Michael Chowdry founded Atlas Air which is based in Purchase, NY, valued around $ 1.39 billion, operates B747's in 46 countries and 101 cities.On January 24, 2001, Michael Chowdry died while flying his personal Czech-made Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainer with Jeff Cole, aerospace editor of the Wall Street Journal. The plane crashed in Watkins, Colorado, killing both Chowdry and Cole. (en)
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