List of Famous people who died in 2009

Eleanor Francis "Glo" Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Sir Ernest Thomas Harrison was an English businessman, best known as chairman of electronics company Racal and the first chairman of its spun-out mobile telephony division, Vodafone.

Barnett Rosenberg was an American chemist best known for the discovery of the anti-cancer drug cisplatin.

Giuseppe Alessi was an Italian politician.

Michael Ames Viner was an American film producer and record producer, who later shifted into book publishing and became an innovator in the audiobook field. A widely sampled percussion break in the recording of the song "Apache" by the Incredible Bongo Band, a group he assembled in the early 1970s, has been frequently integrated into many hip hop recordings.

Karel Antonius Lucia Maria van Miert was a Flemish politician of the Different Socialist Party and official of the European Commission.

René Monory was a French centre-right Gaullist politician.