Oct 20th, 1977...

[RugerHound]

38 years ago tonight, the members of the Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd boarded a Convair CV-300 following conclusion of a gig in Greenville, S.C. Their destination was to be LSU where they'd play the following night in support of their Street Survivors record which had just hit the stores. (Skynyrd had an absolutely crazy touring schedule anyway...)

As we know, they never made it... The plane ran out of fuel and crashed in a thickly wooded area just north & east of Gillsburg, Ms.

From the top of the world to the depths of despair... It all can happen just that quickly.

RIP Ronnie, Steve, Cassie, & Dean... Old Dixie flies in my front yard today in your honor.

 

[Rick Courtright]

Hi,

Fellows on the radio played a little extra Skynyrd this morning in remembrance... RIP, guys, you're missed.

Rick C

 

[Joe S.]

Wow! I had no idea thais was the day it happened! Never been a huge fan of much of their music but that doesnt change the tragedy...

 

[blume357]

Dock Captain at my sail club is a pilot and on some safety committee of the FAA made of of representatives of various aviation businesses...he was telling me one of the big problems is that folks flying private planes from up in the North East down to Florida don't know how to calculate their fuel usage... seems you can't rely on the gages... and a number of them end up in the swamps of SC and Georgia.

 

[gramps]

I am a pilot. I don't understand how they RAN OUT OF FUEL! I would bet there were some pilots on drugs or alcohol. It is very basic working out time/distance vs fuel consumption. Anytime you land- top off the fuel tanks. RIP GUYS. I still enjoy the music.
gramps

 

[FastEd]

—NTSB Accident Report

"The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was fuel exhaustion and total loss of power from both engines due to crew inattention to fuel supply. Contributing to the fuel exhaustion were inadequate flight planning and an engine malfunction of undetermined nature in the right engine which resulted in "torching" and higher-than-normal fuel consumption."

The inspection also found that "All of the fuel crossfeed and fuel dump valves were in the closed position."

 

[blackhawknj]

A number of well known performers and singers have died in small plane crashes-Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper. Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves. Jim Croce.

 

[Rick Courtright]

A number of well known performers and singers have died in small plane crashes-Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper. Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves. Jim Croce.

Hi,

We can add Otis Redding, Rick Nelson, John Denver, Reba's bandmembers and Stevie Ray Vaughan (though I think Stevie Ray died in a helicopter crash.) Karl--737tdi--and I saw one of Stevie Ray's guitars on the wall at the Hard Rock in San Diego recently, and I think we both blurted out about the same words at the same time, "He was way too young!" As were most of them on this list. A celebrity himself, though minor in comparison to his Dad, Dean Martin, Jr. died not far from here in a plane crash. Unlike the others mentioned whom I believe were all in private aircraft, he was on Uncle Sam's payroll at the time.

Rick C

 

[blackhawknj]

I'm not a pilot nor do I play one on the Web, in talking to some of the pilots I have known, both military and commercial, they said too many private pilots are on the careless side and have a "greatly exaggerated" view of their abilities-JFK, Jr, e.g. Don't pay attention to little things like fuel supply . One AF fighter pilot noted the tendency of too many of his peers to look down upon the ground crews and regard them as not much more than fuel pump attendants . In September 1971 Lin Piao, who had been Mao Tse Tung's designated sucessor until they had a falling out, died in the crash of a Lear Jet in Outer Mongolia. The "official" story was that he and his party fled in such a hurry that the plane had not been properly pre-flighted and topped off .

 

[FastEd]

A number of well known performers and singers have died in small plane crashes-Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper. Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves. Jim Croce.

Add pro-golfer Payne Stewart back in 1999.

 

[Dan in MI]

I remember the day well. I worked in our high school radio station and had plans to leave (skip) school at lunch to get tickets for a LS concert on or near Halloween in Detroit.