Posted on 10/20/2017 7:06:42 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
In the summer of 1977, members of the rock band Aerosmith inspected an airplane they were considering chartering for their upcoming tour—a Convair 240 operated out of Addison, Texas. Concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith to look elsewhere—a decision that saved one band but doomed another. The aircraft in question was instead chartered by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date. On this day in 1977, however, during a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tour plane crashed in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt, killing band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
I was at my first Air Force assignment at Fairchild AFB, WA near Spokane; I was driving to work when I heard the news on the radio about the crash.
I was living in SW Pennsylvania and at work when I heard it on the radio. I had recently bought the “Street Survivors” album with the band members on fire on the front cover. The cover was changed after the crash.
I was making chips at Texas Instruments in Houston.
I have that original cover too.
Serving in the USAF, Charleston AFB SC...
18 years old and completely shocked...
I grew up on southern rock...
Thankfully for you tube, watching most bands from that era are a click away...
Funny story...one of my grand kids had me listen to a great new song he found....
“Free bird”
Wasnt a movie squashed?
I was a senior at the University of Iowa, looking forward to graduation in December.
Molly Hatchet was better.
“Where were you ‘77?”
Getting ready to leave Ft. Riley PCS to TU.
5.56mm
Hand guns are made for killin’
They ain’t no good for nothin’ else
And if you like to drink your whiskey
You might even shoot yourself
So why don’t we dump ‘em people
To the bottom of the sea
Before some ol’ fool come around here
Wanna shoot either you or me
I remember it well. I’m from Jax and several members of the band lived in my sisters neighborhood. I used to ride past their house all the time.
My youngest sister was buried in the same cemetery with those three until vandals tried to get into their crypt and their remains were moved to an undisclosed place. I remember my Mom calling me all upset because she was afraid my sister’s grave had been desecrated as it was near the band members site.
I was in the USAF, stationed at Coleman AAF in Sandhofen, Germany, providing weather support for Army aviation. This was devastating news to me as Lynyrd Skynyrd was/still is one of my favorite bands. I had just bought their album, "Street Survivors", and still have it, with the album cover being eerily prophetic:
remember it as though it were yesterday...i was freshman in high school...just months earlier i had seen the mighty Led Zeppelin, opening night at Madison Square Garden...it was being talked about on the bus in the morning on the way to school- no one was exactly sure what happened, who died or how many died...
I’d seen them a couple of nights before at the Hollywood Sportatorium in Broward Co.
Worst news ever at the time.
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