Famous Musicians Who Have Died in Light Planes

We hear about them all the time.  In their effort to have "privacy" that commercial airlines cannot provide them, people will take off in thin tin-can contraptions they call light planes.  Many do not make it, the price they pay for their "privacy".  Of course, there are many celebrities outside of rock music that die in small planes.  These are the famous musicians and music personalities that have perished in those light planes.

Aaliyah

Aaliyah was just a tender 22 years old when she died on August 25, 2001 in a light plane in the Bahamas after filming a music video.  Her second album, One in a Million, which sold eight million copies worldwide, had Aaliyah on the cusp of superstardom and Aaliyah won the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocalist (for "Try Again") just months before her death.

 

Chase

 

This group is best known for their great song "Get It On" in 1971, which helped Chase earn a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.  They were working on a fourth album in 1974 when their light plane crashed in Jackson, Minnesota en route to a performance there on August 9.  Leader and trumpeter Bill Chase, drummer Walter Clark, guitarist John Emma and keyboardist Wally Yohn all died.

 

 

Jim Croce

 

Croce was a very promising singer-songwriter who had already scored huge #1 hit with "Bad Bad Leroy Brown".  While on tour, Croce's chartered light plane crashed on September 20, 1973 while taking off in Natchitoches, Louisiana just one hour after his concert there.

Croce died at the age of 30.  The single "I Got A Name" was released the day after, and it reached #10.  Croce's second #1 smash, "Time in a Bottle", was also released after his death.  Croce scored 10 career hits, with half of those reaching the Top 10, with seven of those hits occurring in a little over a year.




 

John Denver

 

Denver was one of the most popular performers in history, with four #1 songs, twelve gold and four platinum albums, highly-rated television specials, and movie appearances.  He had won three American Music Awards, including one in 1975 for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist, a People's Choice Award, and an Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special for "An Evening With John Denver".  He was named Poet Laureate of Colorado in 1977 and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1996.

 

On October 12, 1997, Denver crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Pacific Grove, California, while making a series of touch-and-go landings in his small private plane at the Monterey Airport.  Denver was 53.

 

Denver's song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Sales of his music have now gone over the 52-million mark worldwide.

 

 

 

Buddy Holly

 

Besides his obvious talent for songwriting, singing, and playing guitar, Holly was one of the great innovators of the early Rock Era (critic Bruce Eder calls him in fact "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll."

 

In just over two years, Holly and his group the Crickets had accumulated nine hits, with three of them reaching the Top 10 and one #1 song.

 

Holly had just finished a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2, 1959, as part of the Winter Dance Party tour.  Buddy, and performers J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) and Ritchie Valens (see below) chartered a small plane to the next stop on the tour.  There was a snowstorm, and of course light planes are battered and thrown about like paper airplanes in a storm.  The plane had no chance and crashed shortly after takeoff, killing Holly at the age of 22.

 

Had it not been for that light plane crash, most rock historians acknowledge that Holly would have been one of the biggest stars of the Rock Era.  He was one of the first musicians to write, perform and produce his own songs.  He was one of the first rock musicians to write the music for and utilize an orchestra.  Thousands of musicians, notably the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, have said that Holly was a major influence.

 

Popular singer-songwriter Don McLean write his famous classic "American Pie" about Holly's death, in McLean's words "the day the music died".  In 1986, Holly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Holly was posthumously honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

 

 

 

Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays

 

Redding was the closing act on the second day of the famous 1967 Monterey Pop Festival before writing and recording "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay".  He had enjoyed 19 hits, but oddly none of them before his death reached the Top 10. 

 

Redding played three concerts in two nights at Leo's Casino in Cleveland, Ohio, before heading to Madison, Wisconsin in a light plane on December 10, 1967.  There was heavy rain and fog, yet the little plane took off.  Four miles from Truax Field in Madison, the pilot requested permission to land.  But the plane crashed into Lake Monona shortly thereafter, killing Redding at age 26 and four members of the Bar-Kays. 

 

Redding became the first person to achieve a posthumous #1 song, as "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was released shortly after his death.  Redding has received many posthumous awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1989) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1994).  In 1993, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honor.  In 2002, the city of Macon, Georgia honored Redding with a memorial statue in the city's Gateway park.

 

The Bar-Kays were a combo formed by Al Jackson, drummer of Booker T. & The MG's.  Guitarist Jimmy King, organist Ronnie Caldwell, drummer Carl Cunningham and saxophonist Phalon Jones were killed in the crash.

 

Jim Reeves

 

Reeves made a bigger impact on the Country music scene, but he did achieve two popular successes:  "Four Walls" (#11 in 1957) and "He'll Have To Go" (#2 in 1960).

 

On July 31, 1964, Reeves and his business partner and manager Dean Manuel left Batesville, Arkansas for Nashville, Tennessee in a single-engine plane.  While flying over Brentwood, Tennessee, the two encountered a violent thunderstorm (sound familiar yet?) and crashed in a wooded area north-northeast of Brentwood.  Reeves was 40. 

 

 

Randy Rhoads

 

Rhoads was an elite guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot.  While on tour with Osbourne in Florida in 1982, Rhoads and the other members of the band were en route to a festival in Orlando, Florida.

 

After riding a bus most of the night, the entourage stopped in Leesburg, Florida, to repair an air conditioning unit.  There was an airstrip with small planes nearby.  Without permission, on the morning of March 19, 1982, tour bus driver and ex-commercial pilot Andrew Aycock took a small plane.  He first took keyboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan.  After landing, Aycock took a second plane in the air with Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood aboard. 

 

During this second flight, Aycock attempted to "buzz" the tour bus, where the other band members were sleeping.  The plane made two close passes, but on the third attempt, the plane's wings clipped the tour bus, breaking the wing into two parts and sending the plane spiraling out of control.  Rhoads and Youngblood were thrown through the windshield.  The plane then severed the top of a pine tree and crashed into the garage of a nearby mansion, bursting into flames.  Rhoads died at the age of 25.

 

He is recognized as an influence to countless guitarists, and is ranked #20 by Inside The Rock Era in its list of The Top 100 Guitarists of the Rock Era*.

 

 

J.P. Richardson

 

Richardson worked as a disc jockey at KTRM radio in Beaumont, Texas, and after serving as a corporal in the United States army, Richardson returned to KTRM where he was on air from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  He then called himself The Big Bopper, and worked the afternoon shift (3-6) and became program director.

 

In 1957, Richardson broke the record for continuous on-air broadcasting, performing for five days, two hours and eight minutes, playing 1,821 records and taking showers during five-minute newscasts.

 

Richardson wrote "White Lightning", which became George Jones' first #1 country hit (#73 overall).  Richardson also wrote the #1 smash "Running Bear" for friend Johnny Preston, the song released after J.P.'s death. 

 

Richardson signed a recording contract with Mercury Records in 1969 and recorded the single "Chantilly Lace", in which he is having a pretend conversation with his girlfriend on the telephone.  The single reached #6 and spent 22 weeks on the chart.

Richardson was promoting the song on the Winter Dance Party when he, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Vallens died in a light plane crash shortly after takeoff from Clear Lake, Iowa.  Richardson was 28 years old.

 

 

 

Jud Strunk

 

Most of Strunk's songs were humorous, but his one big hit, "Daisy A Day" was a serious ballad in 1973.  It reached #4 on the Adult chart and #14 overall.

 

Strunk narrowly lost election for a Senate seat in the state legislature in 1970.  He purchased his own light plane, but on October 5, 1981, suffered a heart attack while taking off at the Carrabassett Valley Airport in Maine and was killed instantly, along with his passenger, Dick Ayotte.  Strunk was 45 years old. 

 

 

 

Ritchie Valens

 

Valenzuela (Valens) was a pioneer in the Rock Era, but his recording career lasted just eight months.  In that time, though, Valens hit #2 and scored a Gold record with "Donna", and recorded the standard "La Bamba". 

 

On February 3, 1959, Valens won a coin toss and boarded a light plane with Buddy Holly and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson (see above) in Clear Lake, Iowa en route to Fargo, North Dakota.  But the plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all aboard.  Valens was just 17 years old at the time. 

 

"La Bamba" was remade into a #1 song by Los Lobos, and Valens was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.