Aaliyah's uncle blames his son in a lawsuit over the singer's 2001 plane crash

Barry Hankerson, the uncle and former manager of Aaliyah, has told a court that his own son may bear some responsibility for the circumstances around the 2001 plane crash that killed the singer. According to TMZ, whose reporting both outlets covering this rely on, the filing says Jomo Hankerson was paid to coordinate travel for a video shoot in the Bahamas and did not do it.

The crash happened on August 25, 2001, shortly after take off from Marsh Harbour. Aaliyah was 22, and eight other people died with her. Barry's filing argues that the flight she took might have been avoided had the travel coordination been handled as arranged. That is an assertion in a legal document rather than a finding, and Jomo has denied the allegations.

The accusation surfaced inside a much larger money dispute. Jomo sued his father and Blackground Records, saying Barry breached a settlement that entitled him to 12 percent of what Barry earned from a set of music assets. Those assets cover master recordings and publishing tied to Aaliyah, Toni Braxton, DMX and Timbaland.

Jomo is seeking more than 1.2 million dollars, and alleges that his father used the label to conceal money and record expenses unrelated to the business in order to push him toward a smaller payout. Barry denies all of it and argues that the settlement itself is invalid because it was executed under fraud. He has also accused his son of threatening to release unreleased Aaliyah recordings unless his financial demands were met.

The timing sits awkwardly against the calendar. The filing became public days after the 25th anniversary of the singer's death, and the R&B and soul catalogue at the centre of the fight is the same one that spent years off streaming services before finally arriving in 2021, itself a product of tension between Blackground and the estate.

Nothing here is settled. Both sides have denied the other's central claim, the case is ongoing, and the plane crash allegation is one element of a father and son dispute that reaches well beyond it. Estate and catalogue fights of this shape keep recurring, as with the reported split of Nipsey Hussle's estate and the defamation case against Ray J.