Plane Crashes That Nearly Wiped Out Entire Bands

Traveling by plane can be dangerous, as musicians know. The list of music luminaries who we've lost in plane crashes includes true icons, but also partial or entire bands who were victims of bad weather, pilot error, or simply cruel fate. Here are the plane crashes that nearly wiped out entire bands.

In 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd were riding high on the release of their fifth album, "Street Survivors," as they departed on what was to be their biggest tour to date. Rather than using a tour bus, the band had chosen to charter a private plane: a Convair CV-240 operating out of Texas. According to History, the plane had been previously considered for this same use by Aerosmith, who had checked it out, but passed due to concerns about the crew. If they had made a different decision, we'd probably be writing about them.

On October 20, 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane simply ran out of gas on its approach to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The pilots (who would posthumously shoulder the blame for the crash) made a panicky request for an alternate landing site to Houston air traffic control roughly 13 minutes before going down in a wooded area outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. Although 20 people survived the crash, it claimed the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister and backup singer Cassie Gaines. Although the band would eventually soldier on with Ronnie's brother Johnny taking over lead vocals, they wouldn't release another album until 1991, and they never again achieved the stratospheric levels of success they did before fate intervened.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd | 0:18
Reba McIntire's band | 1:27
Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays | 2:36
Passion Fruit | 3:46
Chuck Mangione's band | 4:33
Patsy Cline and friends | 5:30
Ricky Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band | 6:43
Jim Croce | 7:53
The day the music died | 8:45

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