Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash
 A Convair CV-240 similar to the accident aircraft | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | October 20, 1977, at 18:52 (CST). |
| Summary | Engine failure due to fuel exhaustion along with pilot error |
| Site | Heavily-wooded swamp, Amite County, five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi 31°04′19″N 90°35′57″W / 31.07194°N 90.59917°W[1]: 3 |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Convair CV-240 (first flew in 1948)[2] |
| Operator | L & J Company of Addison, Texas |
| Registration | N55VM |
| Flight origin | Greenville, South Carolina |
| Stopover | McComb-Pike County Airport, Pike County, Mississippi (emergency attempt) |
| Destination | Baton Rouge, Louisiana |
| Passengers | 24 |
| Crew | 2 |
| Fatalities | 6 |
| Survivors | 20 |
On October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-240 chartered by the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from L&J Company of Addison, Texas, ran out of fuel and crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi, near the end of its flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Lead vocalist/founding member Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray all died as a result of the crash. Twenty others survived.
Crash
On October 20, 1977, three days after releasing their album Street Survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair CV-240 airplane ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The band had just performed at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium and were to play at Louisiana State University upon arriving in Baton Rouge.[2][3]
Upon realizing that the plane had insufficient fuel, the pilots were going to attempt an emergency landing on a small rural airstrip. Despite their efforts, they did not make it and the plane crashed in a wooded area near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Lead singer/founding member Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and copilot William Gray all died in the crash.[2]
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Cassie Gaines had been so fearful of flying in the Convair that she had preferred to travel in the band's cramped equipment truck instead, but Ronnie Van Zant convinced her to board the plane on October 20.[4] Keyboard player Billy Powell's nose was nearly torn off as he suffered severe facial lacerations and deep lacerations to his right leg. Decades later Powell gave a lurid account of the flight's final moments on a VH1 Behind The Music special. He said Van Zant, who wasn't wearing a seat belt, was thrown violently from his seat and died immediately when his head impacted a tree as the plane broke apart. Some elements of Powell's version of the events, however, have been disputed by both drummer Artimus Pyle and Van Zant's widow Judy Van Zant Jenness, who posted the autopsy reports on the band's web site in early 1998 to "set the record straight", while essentially confirming Powell's account.[5] Pyle suffered broken ribs but managed to leave the crash site and notify a nearby resident.[3]
Another member of the band's trio of back-up singers (collectively known as the "Honkettes"), JoJo Billingsley, was not on the plane; she was home sick and planned to join the tour in Little Rock, Arkansas, on October 23.[6] Billingsley said that she had dreamed of the plane crash and begged guitarist/founding member Allen Collins by telephone not to continue using the Convair.[4]
It was later discovered that the very same Convair CV-240 involved in the crash had earlier been inspected by members of Aerosmith's flight crew for possible use in 1977, but it was rejected because it was felt that neither the plane nor the crew were up to standards. Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations, Zunk Buker, told of observing pilots McCreary and Gray sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel's while he and his father inspected the plane.[7] Aerosmith's touring family were quite shaken after receiving word of the crash, as Steven Tyler and Joe Perry had pressured their management into renting that specific plane for use on their 1977 American tour.[8]
The doomed flight of October 20, 1977 was intended to be the last Lynyrd Skynyrd would make on the Convair CV-240. "We were flying in a plane that looked like it belonged to the Clampett family," said drummer Pyle, and the band had decided that their status as one of the world's top rock acts warranted an upgrade. After arriving in Baton Rouge, the band planned on acquiring a Learjet to replace the 30-year-old plane which all in the band's circle agreed was well past its prime.[9]
{{quote box|width=23em|"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."|—NTSB Accident Report[1]
On the American Top 40 show of February 25, 1978, Casey Kasem reported that musical act LeBlanc & Carr had been bumped from the ill-fated flight. The bands were touring together, and last-minute changes prevented the duo from boarding the plane after initially being offered seats.[8]
Cause
Keyboardist Billy Powell, among others, spoke of seeing flames shooting out of the plane's right engine during a flight just days before the crash. The subsequent NTSB report listed "an engine malfunction of undetermined nature" in that same engine as a contributing factor in the crash [1]
Drummer Artimus Pyle told Howard Stern years later in an interview that the fuel gauge in the older-model plane was known to malfunction and the pilots had neglected to manually check the tanks before taking off. In his book Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock, Gene Odom comes to the conclusion that copilot Gray was potentially impaired and had been observed using cocaine the previous evening;[10] however, toxicology reports from both pilots' autopsies found no traces of alcohol or other drugs.[1] "Crew inattention to fuel supply" was ultimately determined to be responsible for the crash.[1]
After the accident, the NTSB removed, inspected, and tested the right engine's ignition magneto and found it to be operating normally, concluding, "No mechanical or electrical discrepancies were found during the examination of the right magneto."[1] The inspection also determined that "All of the fuel cross-feed and fuel dump valves were in the closed position."[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g U.S. National Transportation Safety Board 1978
- ^ a b c ASN Aircraft accident Convair CV-240 N55VM Gillsburg, MS; Retrieved 9/3/11
- ^ a b Pat Adams; Jaquelyn Cooper (October 20, 2017). "The Tragic Plane Crash that Happened on October 20, 1977 in Gillsburg Mississippi". TennesseeConcerts.com. Retrieved November 25, 2017.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help) - ^ a b Brant 2002, p. 151.
- ^ Brant 2002, p. 155.
- ^ Brant 2002, p. 147.
- ^ Davis 1997, p. 304.
- ^ a b "Lynyrd Skynyrd's Plane Crashes in Rural Mississippi". Mississippi Memories. Retrieved November 25, 2017.
- ^ Jordan Runtagh. "Remembering Lynyrd Skynyrd's Deadly 1977 Plane Crash". Rolling Stone, October 20, 2017. Accessed October 27, 2017.
- ^ Odom, Gene (October 1, 2003). "10 - Reflections and Renewal". Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock. Broadway Books. p. 184. ISBN 0-7679-1027-3.
Further reading
- Brant, Marley (2002). Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story. Billboard Books. ISBN 0-8230-8321-7. Retrieved 2008-10-18.
- Davis, Stephen (1997). Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-380-97594-7. Retrieved 2008-10-18.