The U2 lead singer has had a rough time these last few weeks. Paul David “Bono” Hewson just finished recording Band Aid 30 in London — which went off fairly well — but he’s also seen his luggage fall out of an aeroplane over Germany and had to undergo major surgery after a serious accident.
Bono discovers even private jets can lose your luggage
Most people who lose their luggage while travelling chalk it up to the byzantine baggage handling system used by the major carriers. Not Bono. Flying with a private jet should make such incidents impossible, but while his plane was coming in to land in Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport on 12 November, a mechanical failure caused it to lose the rear hatch.
The aircraft’s 80x100cm rear hatch, as well as the singer and his companions’ luggage, landed somewhere in the woods around Berlin. The U2 singer wasn’t in any danger and the aeroplane landed safely, allowing Bono to make his appearance at the Bambi music awards Thursday.
Commentators remarked that clearly Bono wasn’t content to simply bomb people’s iTunes accounts with mandatory downloads of his new album — he finally decided to try and take Berlin. But of course there’s more to the story then that.
Bono was flying in to Berlin a day ahead of the rest of U2 to attend a diplomatic function, aboard a Learjet 60 D-CGEO. According to the Daily Mail, Bono and passengers heard what they described as a “big thud” at one point over Germany, which marked the point at which the tailgate — as well as the luggage of everyone aboard the plane — left the plane and dropped somewhere into the fields of the German state of Brandenburg.
Bono is known for being very attached to his personal possessions, having once launched a quite expensive court case in order to get back a pair of leather trousers, a hat, and a sweatshirt from one of his former stylists. It’s not known whether Bono has made any attempt to recover the lost luggage.
New York bike fall sends Bono to surgery
Rather more serious for the lead singer was what doctors are calling a “high energy bicycling accident” in New York’s Central Park on 16 November. Rolling Stone obtained details after the accident, which led U2 to release a fairly low-key statement to the effect that Bono’s surgery had led them to cancel a week-long residency on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. Fortunately it looks like fans need not cancel their plans to buy U2 tickets, as doctors are predicting a full recovery.
Bono had been rushed to the emergency trauma department of Presbyterian Hospital in New York, where he was given multiple CT scans and X-rays. The scans showed the singer had a number of very serious injuries, including facial fractures in his left eye’s orbit, three different fractures in his left shoulder blade, and a fractured humerus bone in Bono’s left upper arm. The latter was particularly serious — the bone broke in six different pieces and also pierced the skin, resulting in a five-hour long surgery.
The following day Bono had further surgery in order to mend his broken little finger.
Fortunately doctors are predicting a full recovery, though it is not clear how long this will last and he will require intensive, progressive therapy.