Sixty years ago this month, legendary country star Patsy Cline lost her life in a plane crash. This story is about her, and the surprisingly large number of other famous musicians who have died in plane crashes over the years.
There was a pun I could have used for the title, that is linked to one of the artists featured here, but that would have probably been a bit too much.
The suggestion for this story came from one of our regulars (thanks GG from Farnham).
It is a sad, yet fascinating, subject - so many famous musicians have perished in plane crashes over the years. I guess a lot of musicians, especially when in the US, have huge distances to cover, so becoming a frequent flyer is perhaps to be expected, which will in turn raise the probability a little, of becoming involved in an accident, especially when compared to those of us who only fly occasionally.
You will notice from the timeline, that the years between significant crashes gets larger as we go on, which of course reflects increases made in air safety over the years (although as you will see, some of the crashes were caused by idiocy, for which no amount of safety regulations would have saved them).
Glenn Miller
15 December 1944
Glenn Miller was born in 1904, and by the 1930s was recognised as the number one band leader in the United States. By 1944 and the height of World War II, Major Miller was not in combat, but was involved with using music through a counter propaganda radio programme. Stationed in the UK, he had convinced his superiors that he should take his band across the English Channel to newly liberated France, to entertain the troops.
On 15 December, he left Twinwood airfield, north of London, in a UC-64-A Norseman plane, with pilot John Morgan and Colonel Norman Baessell. He was on his way to Paris to make the arrangements to get his band across to the mainland. They never made it, with the plane presumably going down over the Channel, although no wreckage or bodies were ever found. A wide range of theories abounded, including that a British bomber returning from an unsuccessful mission, jettisoned its bombs, hitting the unfortunate plane. Some also speculated that they were shot down, although the most commonly held theory, is that the wings iced up and forced the plane down.
Glenn Miller Orchestra: In The Mood - https://youtu.be/6vOUYry_5Nw
Grace Moore
26 January 1947
Born in 1898 into a strict Tennessee Baptist community, Grace Moore was eager to escape to somewhere else. At 18, she confessed to the heinous crime of dancing at a party, which led to her being denounced as immoral. She escaped East Tennessee and ended up in France studying opera, before coming back to New York, where in 1928 she made her debut at the Met. She became a huge star of the 1930s and 40s, even branching out into film roles, and became known as the Tennessee Nightingale.
At the start of 1947, she was touring Europe. In fact, she found herself on a flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm with none other than Prince Gustav Adolphus, heir to the Swedish throne! The flight had barely left the ground when it nosedived back down, killing all 22 passengers. It seems that a clamp that was used to hold the aircraft's position on the tarmac, had not been removed.
Grace Moore: Vissi D'Arte (from Tosca by Puccini): https://youtu.be/TaP5mJkz84k
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, BJ 'The Big Bopper' Richardson
3 February 1959
It was 'the day the music died' as Don McLean would later sing. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and an assortment of musicians had played a gig at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The next stop on the tour was up at Moorhead, Minnesota, but some of the touring party didn't fancy another overnight trip on the bus.
A plane was chartered to fly them up to Fargo, North Dakota, from where they could drive across to Moorhead. Holly was going, Valens won a coin toss with guitarist Tommy Allsup for a seat, and the last seat belonged to Waylon Jennings (playing in Holly's band). But radio host BJ Richardson was feeling under the weather with flu, so Jennings gave his seat up - a decision that would torment him for years. The Beechcraft Bonanza, piloted by Roger Peterson, hit bad weather and crashed into a cornfield outside Mason City. Peterson, it transpired, was not qualified to fly by instruments in bad weather.
Ritchie Valens: La Bamba - https://youtu.be/Jp6j5HJ-Cok
Patsy Cline
5 March 1963
Patsy Cline was 30 years of age and something of a country - pop crossover success, with her hits like Crazy and Walkin' After Midnight. In 1961, she was almost killed a terrifying car crash, she had also told one of her best friends, with ominous prescience, that she didn't expect to make it to 40.
On 5 March, she was heading home to Nashville, following a show in Kansas City. The pilot of the Piper Comanche was her manager, Ramsey Dorris Hughes. Their journey was stopped several times due to bad weather, but they made their final take off from Dyersburg, Tennessee, before crashing in Camden, 75 miles short of Nashville. All on board were killed, including some other musicians, Harold Franklin Hawkins and Lloyd Estel 'Cowboy' Copas.
Patsy Cline: Walkin' After Midnight - https://youtu.be/lgGI-HOQZBk
Jim Reeves
31 July 1964
'Gentleman' Jim Reeves was another crossover success, bridging the musical worlds of country and pop music, with songs like Adios Amigo. On this summer's day, Jim Reeves himself was at the controls of the Beechcraft Debonair, with manager Dean Manuel as the passenger, as they left Batesville, Louisiana. Despite the time of year, they hit bad weather and he became disorientated in a rainstorm, eventually crashing the plane near Brentwood, Tennessee. It took a two day search involving four hundred people, twelve planes and two helicopters, before the wreckage was eventually found in thick woods. It seems that he allowed the plane's airspeed to get too low and stalled it, but was too low to do anything about it.
Jim Reeves: Adios Amigo - https://youtu.be/ucvcoWMFmW8
Otis Redding
10 December 1967
26 year old Otis Redding was fast becoming the 'King of Soul' with songs like Try A Little Tenderness. He and his band, the Bar Kays, were en route from Cleveland to Madison, Wisconsin. The Beechcraft 18 plane, piloted by Richard Fraser, hit bad weather and possibly suffered engine trouble before coming down in Lake Monona. on the east side of Madison. Only one passenger survived, 20 year old Bar Kays member, Ben Cauley. The cause of the crash was never fully determined.
The opening band for their next show at the University of Wisconsin was due to have been The Grim Reapers, featuring a young guitarist, Rick Nielson (who would go on to be in Cheap Trick). Redding's Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay would become his first number one, four months after his death.
Otis Redding: Try A Little Tenderness - https://youtu.be/azpUTXntVag
(this was filmed the night before he died - oh boy, what a voice!)
Jim Croce
20 September 1973
Jim Croce was a rising star on the folk-rock scene, with songs like Time In A Bottle an Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown. He was burned out though, tired of touring and desperate to finish his last few shows and return to his family. Having played a show at Northwestern University in Louisiana, he left Natchitoches Airport, on his way to the last show in Sherman, Texas. He was in a Beechcraft E18 with pilot Robert Elliott. As the plane took off, it struck a pecan tree and crashed, killing them, along with guitarist Maury Mueleison, tour manager Dennis Rast, agent Kenneth D. Cortese and comedian George Stevens. Pilot error was blamed, although it seems possible that Elliott suffered a heart attack.
Jim Croce: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown - https://youtu.be/yTrsS8SGwx4
Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines
21 October 1977
Legends of southern rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, had just released their fifth album, Street Survivors. Three days later, the band were flying down to Baton Rouge, from Greenville, South Carolina. The pilots seem to have not checked the fuel gauges of their Convair CV-240, and the aircraft ran out of fuel, coming down in the swamps near Gillsburg, Mississippi. There were twenty survivors from the crash landing, but they sadly did not include singer, Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backing vocalist, Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister). The accident led to the band taking a ten year hiatus, before finally resuming touring in 1987.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird - https://youtu.be/rgKdDrHmwbc
Randy Rhoads
19 March 1982
Randy Rhoads was the 25 year old highly regarded lead guitarist for Ozzy Osborne (who had gone solo after being dismissed from Black Sabbath). Rhoads had already also had some success with LA rock band, Quiet Riot (that he had helped found after high school). In fact he was held on a par with Eddie Van Halen by many. He featured on the first two Osborne solo albums, Blizzard Of Oz and Diary Of A Madman.
Andrew Aycock was normally the tour bus driver for the band, but had a pilot's license that had expired. With the band down in Leesburg, Florida (the bus needed repairing), at a property owned by country singer Jerry Calhoun, Aycock decided to take Calhoun's Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft for a spin. The problem was, he took it from the barn without permission. After one flight with keyboard player Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan, Aycock went up for a second, this time with Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood. He was 'buzzing' the tour bus in a somewhat stupid attempt to wake up drummer Tommy Aldridge. On the third time around, one of the wings clipped the top of the bus, causing the wing to break and the plane to spiral out of control, ending up in the nearby mansion house. Airey, the only eyewitness, says that he could see Aycock and Rhoads were engaged in some sort of struggle in the cockpit in the moments before the crash. The big irony was that Rhoads was afraid of flying and only went up because Aycock had promised he wasn't going to do anything stupid - Rhoads wanted to take some aerial photographs.
Ozzy Osborne: Crazy Train - https://youtu.be/Tg0BGr79mDE
Stevie Ray Vaughan
27 August 1990
One of the great blues guitarists of the 1980s, Stevie Ray Vaughan had played with no less than David Bowie on his 1983 Let's Dance album, but had forged his own success with backing band, Double Trouble. On the day in question, he had in fact been playing a series of concerts at the Alpine Valley Music Theater, just outside Milwaukee, as the support for Eric Clapton.
After the last show, Vaughan, along with three members of Clapton's entourage and pilot Jeff Brown, boarded a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter bound for Chicago's Midway airport. In the early hours of the morning, the helicopter crashed into the side of a ski mountain at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, killing all five onboard. Pilot error was once again blamed - there is a suggestion that Brown may have suffered from night blindness, as they took off in bright lights before going into a dark area.
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble: Pride & Joy - https://youtu.be/esVMLLL6Gg4
John Denver
17 October 1997
Another singer who had enjoyed success by crossing over between country, folk and pop, John Denver was a popular fixture on the music scene through the 1970s and 80s. He was an experienced pilot, although he had issues with alcohol. He had been in trouble with two drunk driving charges, including one when he wrapped his Porsche around a tree, which led to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ruling that he was medically disqualified from flying until he could prove he was off alcohol.
Despite the flying ban, Denver had bought himself a new kit plane (assembled by someone else) - a Rutan Long-EZ. He took it for a series of touch-and-go landings at Monterey Peninsula Airport (illegally, given the ban). On one of his circuits, he was struggling to pull the control valve to switch between fuel tanks, and this probably caused him to lose control of the aircraft. The plane went down at the south end of Monterey Bay, near Point Pinos. There is now a memorial plaque on the point, next to the lighthouse.
John Denver: Rocky Mountain High - https://youtu.be/cOS5-n7dyj4
Aaliyah
25 August 2001
Young pop sensation Aaliyah Haughton, had already had three smash hit albums by the age of 22, and had also been briefly married to (later disgraced) singer R Kelly. August 2001 saw her in the Bahamas, shooting a video for her single Rock The Boat.
With filming completed, Aaliyah and some of her friends were heading back to the US. The plane they chartered, a Cessna 402B, was smaller than the one they had flown in on, but it had arrived late, they were tired and insisted they leave. It is alleged that the pilot, Luis Morales III, tried to tell them that with all of their gear, the plane would be too overweight for a safe flight, but still took them despite this. The plane was barely 60 metres from the end of the runway when it crashed, killing all nine people on board. Morales was not rated to fly the Cessna, the plane was found to be 320kg overloaded and had one more passenger than it was supposed to. Morales had apparently lied about the number of hours he had flown, in order to get his job and was found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system (although whether that had a direct impact on the crash, I don't know).
Aaliyah: Rock The Boat - https://youtu.be/3HSJU5fDg0A
The moral of this story seems to be, if someone offers you a ride in a Beechcraft plane - for goodness sake, say NO!