In the summer of 1977, members of the rock band Aerosmith
inspected an airplane they were considering chartering for
their upcoming tour—a Convair 240 (above) operated out of
Addison, Texas. Concerns over the flight crew led Aerosmith
to look elsewhere. a decision that saved one band but doomed
another. The aircraft in question was instead chartered by the
band Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were just setting out that autumn
on a national tour that promised to be their biggest to date.
On October 20, 1977, however, during a flight from Greenville,
South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s
tour plane crashed in a heavily wooded area of southwestern
Mississippi during a failed emergency landing attempt, killing
band-members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie
Gaines as well as the band’s assistant road manager and the
plane’s pilot and co-pilot. Twenty others survived the crash.
