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Hughes was reported to have died on April 5, 1976, at 1:27 p.m. on board an aircraft owned by Robert Graf and piloted by Jeff Abrams. He was en route from his penthouse at the Acapulco Fairmont Princess Hotel in Mexico to [[the Methodist Hospital]] in Houston, Texas. Other accounts indicate that he died in the flight from [[Freeport, Bahamas|Freeport]], [[Grand Bahama]], to Houston.<ref>Lisheron, Mark. [http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/03/0103owensobit.html "Obituary for Lex Dale Owens, owner of Air Ambulance, Inc."] ''Statesman.com'', January 3, 2009. Retrieved: March 17, 2009.</ref>
After receiving a call, his senior counsel, Frank P. Morse, ordered his staff to get his body on a plane and return him to the United States. It was common that foreign countries would hold a corpse as ransom so that an estate could not be settled. Morse ordered the pilots to announce Hughes' death once they entered U.S.
His reclusive activities (and possibly his drug use) made him practically unrecognizable. His hair, beard, fingernails, and toenails were long—his tall {{convert|6|ft|4|in|cm|abbr=on}} frame now weighed barely {{convert|90|lb|kg}}, and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] had to use [[fingerprint]]s to conclusively identify the body.<ref>Hack 2002, pp. 16–18.</ref> Howard Hughes' alias, John T. Conover, was used when his body arrived at a morgue in Houston on the day of his death. There, his body was received by Dr. Jack Titus.<ref>[http://www.hulu.com/watch/71033/inside-howard-hughes-revealed#s-p1-so-i0 "Howard Hughes Revealed".] ''hulu.com'', via National Geographic Channel, ''Inside'' (series), Season 7, episode 2. Retrieved: September 24, 2009.</ref>
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