Three musicians from the long-lasting American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, plus three different individuals, have been killed in a terrifying aircraft crash on the Louisiana-Mississippi border on today in historical past, Oct. 20, 1977.
Lead singer and founder Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines, have been all killed on impression.
The crash of the small Convair CV-240 passenger aircraft additionally claimed the lives of assistant highway supervisor Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Grey.
Twenty individuals survived.
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“The crash took away one of many nice American musicians,” Gene Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s safety supervisor, and one of many survivors of the crash, beforehand informed Fox Information Digital.
“It took from me a lifelong pricey pal and fishing buddy.”
Odom grew up with Van Zant and different founding members of the band in Jacksonville, Florida.
This Oct. 20, 1977, file photograph exhibits the wreckage of a aircraft in a wooded space close to McComb, Mississippi, the place six individuals have been killed, together with three members of the music group Lynyrd Skynyrd. (AP Photograph, File)
The aircraft ran out of gasoline at about 10,000 toes and crashed violently right into a wooded space.
Odom helped lead a vigil to Van Zant and the opposite victims final evening close to the city of Gillsburg, Mississippi. A memorial was erected close to the positioning of the crash in 2019.
Odom was thrown from the aircraft and located by rescuers a while later underneath one of many wings, with horrible accidents.
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He suffered a “large gap within the head from flying by way of the fuselage, a damaged neck, damaged ribs and 45 years of ache,” he stated.
It was solely after Odom received out of the hospital that he realized Van Zant and the others have been lifeless.
Photograph of Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines and founder and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Each have been killed when the band’s aircraft crashed on Oct. 20, 1977. (Ed Perlstein/Redferns)
“The one cause so many survived is that there was no gasoline left on the aircraft. So there was no hearth,” stated Odom.
Guitarist Gaines, he stated, had simply joined the band a yr earlier, on the behest of his sister Cassie, the singer who was additionally killed within the crash.
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“He was going to be a star, a rose that by no means received to bloom,” stated Odom.
Lynyrd Skynyrd stays one of many greatest acts in music historical past and is arguably the highest American rock band of all time.
The band has toured for many years with Johnny Van Zant, the founder’s youthful brother, on lead vocals. They largely play songs written and first carried out by Ronnie Van Zant a half-century in the past — a testomony to his enduring legacy in rock historical past.
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“Candy House Alabama,” one of many band’s signature songs, an ode to “the Southland,” boasts almost 1 billion performs on Spotify, almost 50 years after it was recorded in 1974.
The band’s signature tune, “Free Chook,” from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s debut 1973 album, is a rock epic. The track’s impression has expanded past music and embedded itself in wider popular culture.
Singer-frontman Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd is proven performing on the Omni Coliseum on July 5, 1975, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Tom Hill/WireImage)
It was heard within the film “Forrest Gump” whereas a video of the band performing the track in Oakland in July 1977 has generated tens of tens of millions of performs on YouTube.
“This definitive Southern-rock guitar epic had a humble start, with late Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant scribbling lyrics about conserving love alive on tour,” in keeping with an article in Rolling Stone about “Free Chook.” The publication included the tune on its 2021 checklist of 500 Biggest Songs of All Time.
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The band’s plane was flying to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from Greenville, South Carolina, the place Van Zant closed the present with “Free Chook.”
He by no means carried out once more.
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“Previous Lynyrd Skynyrd nonetheless sells a pair million albums a yr,” stated Odom.
“Elvis, The Beatles and Lynyrd Skynyrd. How ’bout that for my outdated fishing buddy?”
