Steven R. Appleton, head of Micron Technology, dies at 51

Steven R. Appleton, the chief executive and chairman of Micron Technology, one of the world’s fastest-growing semiconductor companies, died Friday in a plane crash near Boise, Idaho. He was 51.

A Micron spokesman confirmed Mr. Appleton’s death in a news release. Through its worldwide operations, Boise-based Micron manufactures and markets a full range of DRAM, NAND and NOR flash memory.

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Mr. Appleton, a professional stunt-plane pilot and former motocross racer, was the only person in the plane when it crashed at the Boise airport. He was flying a small, experimental, fixed-wing aircraft.

It’s not the first time Mr. Appleton has been in a small-plane crash, and questions have been raised in the past about whether the head of a large corporation should be engaging in that hobby. On July 8, 2004, Mr. Appleton suffered a punctured lung, head injuries, ruptured disk and broken bones after his stunt plane crashed in the desert east of Boise.

Mr. Appleton didn’t immediately reveal the severity of injuries he sustained in that crash, and in 2006, a corporate-governance expert began questioning disclosures about the crash.

“It’s not prescribed in rule or law, but you need to communicate so people have a fair understanding to make an investor decision, and that decision is to buy, sell or hold,” Hank Boerner, managing director of New York-based Rowan & Blewitt, told the Idaho Statesman at the time.

Mr. Appleton grew up in a sketchy part of Los Angeles, where his father worked in a doughnut shop and his mother was a schoolteacher. He won a tennis scholarship to Boise State University, where he received a degree in business administration in 1982.

He joined the start-up Micron in 1983. He joined the top executive ranks in the early 1990s, becoming one of the country’s youngest Fortune 500 chief executives.

Survivors include his wife, Dalynn, and four children.

— From staff and wire reports