Musicians That We Lost to Plane Crashes

Chances of dying in a plane crash are slim, unless you are in the music industry

According to the National Safety Council, “commercial scheduled air travel is among the safest modes of transportation; the 2021 lifetime odds of dying as an aircraft passenger in the United States were too small to calculate.”

According to air safety officials, there is an average of one commercial plane crash for every 16.7 million flights. So for every 1,000,000 flights, 0.06% of planes crash. You’d have a better chance of winning the lottery… probably more than once.

But for whatever reason, we’ve lost a lot of musicians and celebrities to plane and helicopter crashes. Whether it’s untrained pilots, lax safety regulations, or smaller personal planes, the odds seem much greater if you’re famous.

1. Glenn Miller 1944

Glenn Miller left behind a family and a job that paid him handsomely to join the fight in World War II. Miller was the Director of Bands for the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command. In the middle of December, 1944, the plane that Miller was on disappeared over the English Channel while on its way to Paris.

A number of theories have been suggested from being shot down to ice on the wings. Sadly, Glenn Miller was never seen again.

2. Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens 1959

In the midst of the Winter Dance Party Tour, some of the artists were getting tired of the long, cold bus trips, so Buddy Holly offered to charter a small plane. Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on February 3rd, 1959, a plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, crashed into a cornfield moments after takeoff. The three musicians, who were ejected from the fuselage upon impact, sustained severe head and chest injuries. Ritchie Valens was only on the plane after he’d won a coin toss. Waylon Jennings voluntarily gave up his seat to the Big Bopper, who had the flu and didn’t want to ride in a bus any longer.

3. Patsy Cline 1963

On March 5th, 1963, country music performers Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins and star, Patsy Cline died when the Piper PA-24 they were flying in crashed into a wooded area near Camden, Tennessee. The three artists were returning home to Nashville, Tennessee, after a performance in Kansas City.

The pilot stopped to refuel and upon taking off in low-visibility conditions, became disoriented. The crash is listed as pilot error, there were no survivors.

4. Jim Reeves 1964

The following year, after losing Patsy Cline, the Grand Ole Opry lost another country music legend in Jim Reeves.

Reeves was piloting the plane that left Arkansas on July 31st, 1964, with his manager, Dean Manuel as the only passenger. He ignored the tower’s advice to fly right, away from a bad storm, choosing instead to follow a road below to the airport. Reeves became disoriented, and the plane crashed going at high speeds. It took days to finally locate the wreckage.

5. Otis Redding 1967

In 1967, Redding was just 26-years-old, and his star status was quickly rising. Otis and his band, the Bar-Kays, were using Redding’s Beechcraft H18 airplane to get from show to show. After playing three shows in Cleveland, the plane took off for Madison Wisconsin.

On December 10th, the plane flew through heavy rain and fog. As they closed in on their destination the pilot radioed for permission to land. Not long after the plane quickly dipped down and crashed into Lake Monona. Everyone on board perished in the crash except for one Bar-Kays band member. Ben Cauley was asleep just before the accident and woke up in time to see his bandmate staring out the window. He remembered hearing the man say, “Oh, no” and the next thing he knew he was in the cold lake water clutching a seat cushion. He watched some of his friends drown but couldn’t do anything due to the fact that he couldn’t swim.

Four months after the crash, Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Charts.

6. Jim Croce 1973

Jim Croce, like Redding, was reaching the peak of his career as his life was taken at the age of 30. On the night of Thursday, September 20th, Croce and five others were on their way to his last tour stop in Sherman, Texas when the accident occurred.

The pilot was late, he’d run three miles from the hotel he was staying at to the airport after missing his cab. When he climbed into the chartered Beechcraft E18S a heavy fog covered the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.

As the plane took off it almost immediately clipped a pecan tree and crashed. All six people onboard died immediately.

7. Ronnie Van Zant 1977

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s new album, “Street Survivors” had just been released. It was their fifth album and the band was at the height of their success. On October 20th, 1977, the Convair CV-240 was flying out of Greenville, South Carolina on its way to the band’s next show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Somewhere over Mississippi the plane ran out of fuel.

The pilot came over the speaker and warned the passengers to brace for impact. Van Zant died on impact from head injuries. Ronnie’s bandmates Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and the pilots, Walter McCreary, and William Gray, were also killed.

20 people survived the crash but it would be ten years before they would reunite with Ronnie’s younger brother at the helm.

8. Randy Rhoads 1982

Randy Rhoads was a classicaly trained guitarist and one of the founding members of Quiet Riot. After the original band broke up, Rhoads auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne and played on his first two solo albums.

On March 19th, the band’s tour bus stopped at the property of the Calhoun Brothers tour bus company to fix a malfunctioning air conditioning unit. As members of the band slept, tour bus driver, Andrew Aycock, snuck on to a nearby air strip and borrowed a single-engine Beechcraft. On the first flight, Aycock brought along keyboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan. They buzzed the tour bus in an attempt to wake up some band members. After landing, Aycock brought Randy Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood aboard.

They successfully buzzed the tour bus twice before attempting a third pass. At around 10 a.m., one of the plane’s wings clipped the tour bus. The wing snapped in half and sent the plane spiraling towards a nearby mansion. It struck the garage and burst into flames. According to Sharon Osbourne, the three passengers were burned beyond recognition and needed to be identified by dental records.

9. Ricky Nelson 1985

On December 31st, 1985, Ricky Nelson was in the middle of a comeback tour. The one-time teen heartthrob hated flying but refused to travel by bus. In May of that year, he purchased a private plane once owned by Jerry Lee Lewis. The 14-seat 1944 Douglas DC-3 had a history of mechanical problems.

On his way to a New Year’s Eve concert performance in Dallas, Texas, the pilot attempted to make an emergency landing after a faulty heater in the tail of the plane caught fire. As the plane neared the ground it crashed into trees, poles, and electrical wires. Both pilots survived, but all seven passengers, including his fiancé and band members, died.

10. John Denver 1997

On October 12th, 1997, John Denver took his recently purchased, home-built aircraft on a test flight. Denver was an experienced pilot with over 2,700 hours put in. He’d recently had his license suspended however, following drunk driving incidents.

Flying solo, Denver went to change fuel tanks but pressed the button for the rudder pedal by mistake. He lost control of the aircraft and crashed into Monterey Bay near Pacific Grove, California. Some people assumed that he’d be drinking, but autopsy reports showed no drugs or alcohol in his system. The official cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma resulting from the crash.

11. Aaliyah 2001

At just 22-years-old, Aaliyah already had three best selling albums to her name. On August 25th, 2001, Aaliyah was in the Bahamas, filming a music video for her song, “Rock the Boat.” Afterwards, Aaliyah and her entourage were excited to get back to Miami. The twin-engine Cessna 402 was late and the group fought with the pilot to take off quickly. He warned them that the plane was over the weight (and passenger) limit.

They convinced him to take off. The plane caught fire shortly after takeoff and crashed back down 200 feet from the runway. Aaliyah and the eight other people on the plane died immediately.