On October 19, 1977, two days after releasing their album
Street Survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd performed at the
Greenville Memorial Auditorium in
Greenville,
South Carolina. The following day they boarded a
Convair CV-240 airplane to take them to
Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, where they were to perform at
Louisiana State University. The plane ran out of fuel near the end of the flight. Upon realizing that the plane had insufficient fuel, the pilots attempted to navigate to
McComb Airport, about northeast of the eventual crash site in
Amite County,
Mississippi, but soon realized that the plane would not make it. As a last resort, they attempted an
emergency landing in an open field about from where the plane eventually went down. the plane skimmed about along the top of the tree line before smashing into a large tree and splitting into pieces near
Gillsburg, Mississippi. Early in the flight, witnesses recall that lead vocalist
Ronnie Van Zant was lying on the floor with a pillow, having been up most of the previous night and being in need of sleep. Several other passengers passed the time by playing cards. At some point the passengers became aware that something was wrong, and drummer
Artimus Pyle recalled entering the flight deck and being told by the terrified
captain, Walter McCreary, to go back and strap himself in. With the gravity of the situation clear, the passengers sat in silence, some praying. Guitarist
Gary Rossington recalled hearing what sounded like hundreds of baseball bats hitting the plane's fuselage as it began striking trees. The sound got louder and louder until Rossington was knocked unconscious; he awoke some time later on the ground with the plane's door on top of him. Keyboard player
Billy Powell's nose was nearly torn off in the crash as he suffered severe facial lacerations and deep lacerations to his right leg. Decades later, he gave an account of the flight's final moments on a
VH1 Behind the Music special, stating that Van Zant, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown violently from his seat and died immediately when his head hit a tree as the plane broke apart. Some elements of Powell's version of the events, however, have been disputed by both drummer Pyle and Van Zant's widow Judy Van Zant Jenness, who posted the
autopsy reports on the band's web site in early 1998, while confirming other aspects of Powell's account. Pyle suffered broken ribs but, with two other crash survivors, managed to leave the crash site and reach a local farm. The farmer mistook them for escaped convicts and fired a shot in the air, warning them to get off his property. Pyle was finally able to convince him that they had been involved in a plane crash and needed help. Another member of the band's trio of back-up singers (collectively known as the "Honkettes"),
JoJo Billingsley, was not on the plane as she was under a doctor's care in
Senatobia, Mississippi, dealing with health problems brought about by
substance abuse. Billingsley planned on re-joining the tour in
Little Rock,
Arkansas, on October 23. She reported dreaming of the plane crash and begging guitarist and founding member
Allen Collins by telephone not to continue using the Convair. It was later discovered that the very same aircraft had earlier been inspected by members of
Aerosmith's flight crew for possible use in their
Draw the Line tour, but it was rejected because it was felt that neither the plane nor the crew were up to standard. Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations, Zunk Buker, told of observing pilots McCreary and Gray sharing a bottle of
Jack Daniel's while he and his father inspected the plane. Aerosmith's touring family were quite shaken after receiving word of the crash, as
Steven Tyler and
Joe Perry had pressured their management into renting that specific plane for use on their tour. Scottish rock band
Nazareth were touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the time of the crash, and narrowly avoided boarding the flight themselves. Bassist
Pete Agnew explained: “Artimus Pyle had lived in Greenville, where the plane took off from, and was having a barbecue. They’d invited us along and then on to the next gig with them. But we’d seen their plane – which looked like Gaffa Tape Airlines..." The fabricated excuse of "doing some
promo" was ultimately used to get out of attending but Lynyrd Skynyrd's road crew, under the mistaken impression Nazareth had gone to the barbecue, announced that Nazareth too were among the fatalities. Vocalist
Dan McCafferty recalled: "At the next gig, when I phoned the wife, she burst into tears with relief." The doomed flight of October 20, 1977, was intended to be the last Lynyrd Skynyrd would make on the Convair. "We were flying in a plane that looked like it belonged to the
Clampett family," said Pyle, and the band had decided that their status as one of the world's top rock acts warranted an upgrade. The band had planned on acquiring a
Learjet after arriving in Baton Rouge, to replace the 30-year-old plane, which all in the band's circle agreed was well past its prime.
Rescue Rescuers had to cross a 20-foot-wide (6 m), waist-deep creek and dig through an overgrown forest, while digging out rescue vehicles that got stuck in the mud. Locals worked with rescue officials and drove victims to the hospital in the back of pick-up trucks. One local resident recalled, "I found someone on the ground alive. When I walked to the other side of the plane, I tripped on another person." Another resident commended the actions of all those who helped, and highlighted that, "Some of them were out on that highway directing traffic. Some of them went home and got tractors. My wife was home on a
CB radio. I'm relaying messages on CB to her, ten miles away." ==Cause==