Prince Johannes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

However, Johannes died at seventeen on 21 August 1987 in a climbing accident. He had gone on a climbing expedition on his own, telling his parents that he was headed to one site, but actually heading to a different, and riskier mountain. When Johannes did not return home when expected, his worried parents notified the authorities. Search parties were organized and helicopters were used to scour the region. His lifeless body was spotted from a helicopter, thus bringing the search to a tragic end. The loss of Johannes was a devastating blow to his desolated parents. However, due to the tragedy, it also left his mother's family without a clear dynastic and eligible heir, and also left his father without a direct male heir. Prince Johannes Heinrich of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had fathered a daughter, Felicitas, from his previous marriage to Baroness Gabriele von Fürstenberg.

Johannes Albert Leopold Frederick Christian, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Koháry, in Slovak: Ján ..., in Hungarian: János ..., in German: Johannes Albert Leopold Friedrich Christian Erbprinz von Sachsen-Coburg-Kohary (17 November 1969, in Innsbruck – 21 August 1987, in Ortler) was a German royal (prince from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry) and presumed heir of his maternal uncle, the childless Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen, Head of the Royal House of Saxony.

Johannes was the only child of the Princess Mathilde of Saxony, the youngest daughter of Frederick Christian, Margrave of Meissen, thus a granddaughter of Frederick August III of Saxony who was deposed in 1918. Mathilde's brothers did not have any children, and her elder sister Anna's issue with Roberto de Afif were deemed lower-born than the uncontested dynastic Prince Johannes. Because his maternal uncles were already middle-aged and childless, Johannes was groomed from his youth to become the heir of the Royal House of Saxony.