Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

The tale of the 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash

It was October 18, 1977. I had been in radio as a Top 40 DJ for over two-and-a-half years. I was at my second radio gig in Salem, Oregon, at a little AM station, KBZY. Top 40! We played the hits! That year meant Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” Andy Gibb’s “I Just Want to Be Your Everything,” Alan O’Day’s “Undercover Angel,” ELO’s “Telephone Line” and a smorgasbord of other delightful mid-to-late 70s pop rock. I’d been made Music Director within two weeks of getting hired at the station the previous year when the then-MD got hired to work at a Seattle station.

Yep, that’s me on the air at KBZY around 1980.

Being a Music Director at a radio station, at least back then, was a ton of fun. The benefits of being a young music director were many: Lots of records and lots of concerts, which often meant going backstage to shake hands with the bands. Okay, it didn’t happen all the time, but I did manage to meet several pretty big stars along the way.

That night, I was doing the 7-midnight shift. The station had a good listenership. We were a rock station, except for the soft rock stuff we had to play to placate the bosses. As MD, I was able to daypart some music, which meant playing the softer stuff during the day, and the harder rock at night. During the shift, my duties included reviewing the AP newswire and ensuring it had enough paper as it continuously spits out news, features, sports scores, and more. Every hour or so I would review it to ensure nothing of significance slipped by, although that was quite rare.

At some point during the shift, the request line rang.

“Hi, this is KBZY….”

“Uh, hey, man, have you heard anything about the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash?”

“The what?” I was confused. Lynyrd Skynyrd had just released a brand new album, “Street Survivors,” and I’d just listened to it within the last day or two. It was a good piece of work from them and a big step forward for the band. But a plane crash? “Let me check. Hang on,” and I set the phone down, stepped into the newsroom, and culled through the last several hours’ worth of AP copy.

The original release of “Street Survivors”

Nothing about a plane crash at all, and certainly nothing about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashing. I went back to the control room, picked up the phone, and told the caller I had no news regarding a Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash.

He thanked me and hung up.

I finished my shift and called it a night. I didn’t think anything more of the phone call because we got odd calls now and then. Sometimes, for instance, a little old lady would call and complain about the music, and I’d tell her that she could either turn the radio off or change the station.

Two nights later, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed.

The news came over the AP wire. I don’t recall exactly how I discovered it, whether I happened to read it or if someone called, but regardless when I saw the news, a chill down my back. Of course, I immediately put the news on the air and played several Lynyrd Skynyrd tunes as we awaited news updates. The news of the crash was a blow to fans, especially since several band members had come through some serious drug problems and had come out on the other side, cleaning up and making great new music. The new album, “Street Survivors,” features a somewhat prescient photo on the cover with the band enveloped in flames.

The album insert with the original AP copy of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash.

I went on the air and explained that I’d received the phone call two nights earlier from someone who asked me about the “Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash,” hoping I could get him to call me back. I never heard from whomever it had been.

To this day, that’s the strangest, freakiest, and most coincidental event that’s happened to me. Yeah, there have been strange occurrences now and then, oddities, but nothing so specific as getting a phone call two days before a tragic event from someone who had asked a very specific question.

“Have you heard anything about the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash?”

I don’t know how to explain it. I won’t even try. I’ve told this story to people now and then, and I get headshakes (you must be making it up!), disbelief, or incredulity.

There’s more to the story. According to Wikipedia’s article on the crash,

Another member of the band's trio of backup 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. The band's ex-guitarist, Ed King, said later that he "always knew it wasn't gonna end well" for the band due to their penchant for drinking and brawling, but he could never have envisioned it ending the way it did, and recalls being overcome with sadness upon learning of the crash.

And…

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 drummer Artimus 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.

Street Survivors went gold within ten days of its release and would later go double platinum. The band’s record company replaced the original cover of the band surrounded by flames with a different band photo.

Strange things happen in life. Things you can’t explain. Sometimes it’s fun to include strange things in fiction, but as we all know, truth is often stranger than fiction.

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