Circa 1975, Singers Cassie Gaines , Leslie Hawkins and Jo Jo Billingsley of the American rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1970s. Everyone was afraid of riding on this plane. Pyle maintains in the Howard Stern interview that the fuel gauge in the older model plane malfunctioned and the pilots had failed to manually check the tanks before taking off. Rock Musician. The album had deeper meaning than most. Allen's wife would bleed to death due to a miscarriage. Violent, wild, and belligerent, Ronnie was a force to be reckoned with. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Soon after the plane would begin to jerk and shake violently. He was more in the image I was pre-visualizing - one of an aging rocker. But there wasn't any gas on the ground because they ran out of gas.". As the bulletins continued, they became more descriptive: "Tractors were pulling ambulances across a creek" was one exaggerated quote I remember so well. The cover would quickly be changed to a more bland blacked-out background with the band in the same pose after the accident. On October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-240 carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Obviously it is hard to dictate the correct story when various opinions and recollections are thrown out, however, it seems to us as though the pilots were aware of the faulty issues of the plane, did not check to make sure that the plane had enough gas, and did not seem to make an attempt to alert the passengers of their timely death. He remembered seeing bodies everywhere. After a shorter-than-normal day of bow hunting, he received a phone call about a plane crash in the area. Losing daylight, the pilots desperately looked for an open field or some kind of saving grace. Sadly, the band would not make it to Baton Rouge and the plane had been pushed one flight too many. Photo credits Airplane-Pictures.net. [2] Easley knows he wasn't the first on the site, but he was there early. Willing to lend a hand and stick by his bandmates, he was hard to beat when standing by your side. It is reported that the pilots whose eyes were full of terror, told them to go back to their seats and prepare for impact. He claims that Artimus Pyle, drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, survived scathe-less and crawled into the bushes watching Ronnie and the others die in this horrid fiery crash. One of them being completely decapitated. However, it is believed that the pilots were trying to transfer oil from one engine to another when they accidentally jettisoned the fuel instead. Allen Collins, another guitar player for the group, had cracked two vertebrae, and the cut to his right arm was so severe, that it almost required amputation. With the tree tops approaching fast and just eight miles short of the air strip, the plane was headed for a Mississippi swamp and nothing could be done to save them now. Photo: Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader. Organize, control, distribute and measure all of your digital content. At the beginning of the flight, all was well, amid high tensions. I was just taken aback by it " but then his friend continued, "don't worry, Lynyrd made it out.". The aircraft crashed in a heavily wooded area during an attempted emergency landing. She was requested to join the band as a backing vocalist. Lynyrd Skynyrd stops for a shot in 1973. Artimus Pyle and Gary Rossington are the only two members alive today from the crash. The original cover was restored after the 30th anniversary of the album. Crying, praying, and counting the dead to see who they would never hug, play music with, and enjoy company with again. Everyone on the flight, except for Ronnie Van Zant, was feeling uneasy and restless. I began the classic guitar lick. Updated cover after plane crash, 1977The official NTSB accident report reads, "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. We just had released an album that went gold almost overnight. They were scheduled to perform at the Louisiana State University. After I led him to the downtown McComb offices, I returned home, developed my film in a clumsy bathroom darkroom and went to sleep. Rescuers look over the wreckage of the 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. That now legendary and near-mythical plane crash killed Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, Honkettes backup singer Cassie Gaines, assistant tour manager Dean Kilpatrick and the pilot and co-p Lynyrd Skynyrd is no doubt an American staple in music and southern rock culture. Apparently, Artimus had been quoted saying that Ronnie got up, went to the back of the plane and gave him a hippy handshake but Gene was quite persistent on the fact that it was complete bull. Three crew members died in a plane crash just three days after the release of their 5th album. A plane crash left lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt, lead guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines dead. He was only 39, but was no rookie. memorial page for Cassie LaRue Hatfield Gaines (26 Nov 1926-15 Feb 1979), Find a Grave Memorial ID 37010431, citing Jacksonville Memory . Aerosmiths management passed on the opportunity to call this plane their own. Rossington and keyboardist Billy Powell are now the only founding members in the band. Street Survivors was released just three days before the crash and would quickly become a hit. read another typical message of mourning. He was best known for being a Rock Singer. Most of the 20 survivors were taken to Southwest Regional Medical Center in McComb, where the lobby had been transformed into a makeshift emergency treatment center to quickly deal with the onslaught of plane crash victims. I marked my calendar and made arrangements. The album cover depicted the band members in an alleyway covered in flames. News had spread about the crash and before too long an estimated 3,000 people had swarmed to the crash site. It is possible that the damaged magneto fooled the pilots into creating an exceptionally rich fuel mixture, causing the Convair to run out of fuel. He had been impaled by a part of the fuselage and it pushed through his body and projected out of his back. Get the news that matters from one of the leading news sites in Ghana, UN development chief sounds alarm over debt distress, Texas: Wind and solar stake claim to land of oil, Couple loses GH 300,000 on their wedding after guests don't show up: "So heartbroken", "Rest Well": Thomas Partey pays tribute to Christian Atsu as she scores in Arsenal's 3-2 win over Bournemouth, Hard guy dey cry: Sulley Muntari sheds tears at Christian Atsu's 1-week observance, Richard Kingston consoles him in sad video, 150+ Sad messages: ideas to express your deepest feelings in 2022, What happened to Jade Castrinos after Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, List of American foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner that you will love, 80+ Juice WRLD's quotes and lyrics about love, life, success and heartbreak. As we talked, we heard a racket through the trees. Headline from a local newspaper reporting the crash. ", "He came home covered in blood," said his wife, Lola. Billy had taken too long on his intro to the song Free Bird and that didnt set well with Ronnie. The plane finally slammed into the earth, and Billy Powell recalls saying, We hit the trees at approximately 90 mph. "That solidified that idea. A chartered Convair 240, N55VM, carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed near a forest in McComb, Mississippi. Leon Wilkeson, their bass player, had arguably the most harrowing recovery; as he faced many internal injuries, dislodged teeth, and a broken left arm and leg, and his heart stopped twice on the operating table while doctors frantically struggled to keep him alive. Collins and other band members were severely injured. On several occasions, the latter shined through. Crying, praying, and counting the dead to see who they would never hug, play music with, and enjoy company with again. Through the woods, yet another seeker appeared. Cassie Gaines was born on January 9, 1948 and died on October 20, 1977. We'd move one and there would be another one laying there." The plane was produced from 1947-1954. He was a walking treasure trove of names, facts and figures. He needed to use their darkroom to get his photos out. I was not there to be a gawker or to get in the way. Part of the preparations required contacting landowners and securing permission to be there and a guide to lead me in. We beat patterns into our dashboards drumming out the beat. It was rumored that it was Ed Kings (original guitar player for Lynyrd Skynyrd) wife but it was not confirmed. Cassie was 29 years old at the time of death. In the beginning, the singer was reluctant to board the aircraft and had already bought another commercial flight ticket. 100+ love and trust messages for her to rekindle the passion, 100+ miss you sister quotes, messages, and texts to show your love, EU parliament chief urges Ukraine membership talks this year, UN chief condemns rich countries 'vicious' tactics against poor, Meet Empress Esi the 13-year-old GH girl building schools and giving joy to the needy through her foundation, Christian Atsu's family releases date, venue and other details about his final funeral rites, "Beauty and talent": Gorgeous young lady displays exceptional drumming skills in church, viral video melts hearts, What teams have never been to the super bowl. With the dust settled from a plane crash that would make a small Mississippi town famous, everything that surrounded the few conscious and able survivors were completely horrific and getting darker by the second. "From there, we followed the lights of the helicopter," he said. The crash killed singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. As we walked, Easely pointed to a towering pine. It was going to be the replacement for Douglas C3s with a pressurized cabin that was then just being mandated as a rule for commercial airlines. "The first thing I saw was a bloody hand reaching out from the debris. The events before the plane crash are perhaps the most bone-chilling ones you'd ever hear. The band regularly has different people sit in and play shows with them like Warren Haynes and Dicky Betts. There have been several different theories as to the culprits of this . Coincidence? They were directing him to the property next to his family's farm. Steven Earl Gaines (September 14, 1949 - October 20, 1977) was an American musician. There is some speculation as to why the second engine had ultimately failed. Thats when most of the sober members of the band saw that the right propeller was no longer working. Deceased people hanging from trees, the other survivors moaning for help of any kind, and completely surrounded by a black swamp whose canopy is blocking the only light that is trying so desperately to shine through. When he was sober, he was a fair and kind person. she asked me as we talked. Powells nose had been nearly ripped from his face after crashing head first through a table. In an interview in the book Walk This Way, Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations Zunk Buker tells of seeing pilots McCreary and Gray trading a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth while Buker and his father were inspecting the plane. Rescue vehicles on the ground found no direct path in sight. Turns out that Cassie didn't want to board that particular flight and had blatantly refused to travel on that plane. As we walked through the woods, Governor and I agree that nothing looked or felt the same. Among them were Lacy Van Zant, Ronnies Father, and .38 Specials Guitarist Dan Barnes. He lifted one after another and shuffled them to others outside.