Recently, I wrote about the unfortunate deaths of John Denver, Jim Reeves, Buddy Holly, and other famous musicians in tragic airplane crashes – to paraphrase Don McLean’s song, “American Pie” (1971): “days the music died.” For many of us, that song, those events, conjure up a long ago, melancholy time in our lives – a time when our present was uncertain, and our past was threatening to outrun our future:
And in the streets, the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed,
But not a word was spoken.
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most,
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast.
The day the music died.
Statisticians say that the average person would need to fly every day for more than 10,000 years to be in a fatal airplane crash. Somehow, I don’t think the odds are that good for professional, touring musicians. Here are five more examples of days the music died. I can think of even more, but after this, it’s “Requiescat in Pace” (Rest in Peace) on the subject. Let’s look first at “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown” (1973):
James Joseph “Jim” Croce (1943-1973) was a Philadelphia-born folk and rock singer-songwriter whose career spanned the years 1966-1973. His most well-known songs were “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” (1972), “Time in a Bottle” (1973), and, of course, “Leroy Brown.” He died on 20 September, 1973, in Natchitoches, Louisiana, when his chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree upon takeoff from the city’s regional airport. He had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University and was enroute to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College.
A subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the probable cause was pilot error and physical impairment. The pilot had failed to see the tree because of fog, and he also suffered from uncorrected severe coronary artery disease. In addition, after failing to find a taxi before the flight, he had literally run three miles from his motel to the airport. A follow-up investigation later placed sole responsibility for the crash on the pilot, because of “his downwind takeoff into a ‘blackhole’ of severe darkness, further limiting his use of visual resources.”
About the time of Croce’s death, I was teaching at the Naval Chaplain’s School and at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and part of my job involved hiring civilian Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to come to the school and speak on subjects in their area of expertise. In my research for someone to speak on “leadership,” I found the resume of a gentleman in New York City, a Mr. Lee, who was the subject of a hit song by that name, “Mr, Lee,” from 1957, by the “Bobbettes.” The all-girl group had written the song as a protest to him who, at the time of the song’s composition, was their strict math teacher in a New York City public school. Some of you may remember the opening lines. Mr. Lee said he’d just as soon forget them:
One, two, three,
I shot Mr. Lee.
Three, four, five,
I got tired of his jive.
He was a real cool cat,
And wore a high-top hat.
He was a real cool cat.
And the girls loved that.
Ricky Nelson (1940-1985) died on New Year’s Eve, 31 December, 1985, when his 41-year-old Douglas DC-3 crash-landed mid-flight outside De Kalb, Texas. Nelson had bought the plane for $118,000 in Wisconsin in May of that year. Once owned by Jerry Lee Lewis, who had refused to fly in it because of continued mechanical problems, the plane was carrying the singer and his band from Guntersville, Alabama, to a new year’s concert in Dallas. Most of the passengers were asleep; however, one was cold and attempted to turn up a poorly functioning gas heater which began to smoke. Another passenger made the mistake of opening a window of the plane; the smoke spread, and the pilots were forced to crash land, killing Nelson, his girlfriend, and five band members. Both pilots survived.
I heard the above story from a friend of mine, a retired counselor living outside Purvis, who has enjoyed a career just about as crazy as mine. For example, for five or six years, when he was much younger, he drove for Continental Trailways Bus Lines out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Spokane, on routes along the west coast and into Canada. I, too, once held a B class commercial bus license, with air brakes, but never made it to the over-the-road, long haul big boys.
It wasn’t smoke, but I initially thought it was. I had caught a hop back to the States on a C-141 Starlifter out of Torrejon Air Force Base in Madrid, Spain, in the 90s, and I was the only passenger in the whole cargo bay. I was sitting in the back, in a canvas sling, freezing to death, reading a book, just about to the Atlantic Ocean by my calculation, when I noticed that the whole compartment was full of a curious, oily mist. At first, I did think it was smoke, but I soon figured out it was hydraulic fluid. Since the controls on those planes were hydraulically controlled, and not more modern “fly by wire,” it scared me, so I called it to the attention of the plane captain. He informed the pilot, and we promptly headed back to Madrid. It took me another day or two to catch another ride to the States. By the way, for what it’s worth, my favorite Jerry Lee Lewis song will always be “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye:”
And I know she didn’t mean to make me cry,
It’s not her heart, Lord, it’s her mind.
She didn’t mean to be unkind.
Why, she even woke me up to say goodbye.
‘Goodbye, baby.’
Dean Paul Martin (1951-1987), the son of famous movie star, Dean Martin, wasn’t yet as well-known as his father, but he was steadily gaining fame as a pop singer, film and television actor when he met his untimely death on 17 November, 1987. A member of the California Air National Guard, he was at the controls when his USAF F-4 Phantom II jet fighter plane flew into Mount San Gorgonio, the highest peak in California, during a military training flight. Recently divorced (1984) from Olympic gold medalist, Dorothy Hamill, he had received his flight training at Mississippi’s Columbus Air Force Base in 1981 and had just been promoted to Captain in the Air Force Reserve. The crash, which also killed his back seat weapons systems officer, occurred in a snowstorm.
One thing I have noticed about Martin’s accident and that of the other musicians is that none of them were involved in mid-air collisions. As full as the skies are with flying objects, I’m surprised this didn’t occur more often, especially regarding some of the “seat of the pants” flying operations that earlier musicians were involved in. Even with advanced technology available, mid-air collisions are not unheard of, even today. When I was a kid on a destroyer in the Mediterranean in the early 1960s, I observed a terrible mid-air collision between two F8U Crusader fighter jets assigned to the USS Independence (CV-62). It was during night ops; we were running plane guard behind the carrier, and I was topside for a breath of fresh air. I happened to look up and watch the flashing red and green lights of the two jets slowly merge and then explode into a horrific crescendo of flames and debris slowly falling into the ocean. I had not yet received my Top-Secret Clearance, so I was not privy to the radio message traffic that ensued explaining the mishap, but there couldn’t have been any survivors.
I have unpleasant memories every time I remember my delayed Top-Secret Clearance. I should have received it when I graduated from electronics school in San Francisco; however, when the FBI or whoever did the security clearances in those days went to Lumberton and interviewed townspeople regarding my character and suitability, they got me confused with my daddy (same name) who had a serious alcohol problem. I was summarily rejected until I could get the names straight. A cautionary tale.
Stevie Ray Vaughn (1954-1990) was a blues guitarist and frontman of the blues rock trio “Double Trouble. He is described in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “the second coming of the blues.” He was killed on 27 August, 1990, in East Troy, Wisconsin, when his helicopter crashed into a hill after what proved to be his final concert. It was foggy that night, and the Bell 206B helicopter was not equipped for instrument flight. Again, this crash was attributed to pilot error. Eric Clapton, the great English guitarist, had attended the concert by Vaughn on the night of his death, and later recalled that he had left early “because his friend’s playing was so majestic, he left because of jealousy.” He said that Vaughn’s playing was “one of the purest channels I have ever seen.”
I’ve always had a premonition that I would die in a helicopter or plane crash, and I figure that I’ve cheated such a death at least five times, including once at sea and twice in Vietnam. If I were a cat, I suppose I would have four lives left. As a human, who knows? On the other hand, according to the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTA), the odds of dying in an automobile crash are off the chart – 1 in 101 (NHTA, 1/16/23), so I know it’s safer in the air.
Aaliyah Dana Haughton (1979-2001), better known simply as “Aaliyah,” and briefly the underaged (15) wife of recently convicted sex offender and singer/music producer R. Kelly (Robert Sylvester), died in an aircraft accident in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas, on 25 August, 200l.
A Grammy winning, double-platinum album-selling pop/hip-hop/R&B singer, she died along with eight other members of her entourage when their overloaded plane crashed on take-off. Aaliyah, who was in the Bahamas to film a music video, had a fear of flying, and reportedly, had been sedated to the point of unconsciousness before the flight. Subsequent investigation revealed that not only was the charter plane, a twin-engine Cessna 402, overloaded, but that the pilot had also falsified his experience and qualifications to fly that type of aircraft. Aaliyah had just wrapped up the filming of her second movie, an adaption of the Anne Rice novel, “Queen of the Dammed” (2002), where she starred as a vampire queen. Sadly, her appearance in the movie served as a tragic goodbye to her fans. Some pundits say that her song, “Death of a Playa” (1997), referred to the promiscuous behavior of her ex-husband, R. Kelly: “You used to get them, trick them, diss them, do them wrong; but now your playa days are gone.” Too bad she didn’t live to see him sent to prison.
Aaliyah’s plane was only certified to carry seven passengers, and the eighth, plus the music video gear, made the fatal difference on the short flight to Miami. To his credit, the pilot was overheard to have argued with her manager, saying that the plane was overloaded, but he was overruled and took off anyway. I guess that’s the difference between civil and military aviation. I was unceremoniously ejected from a COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) flight about to be shot by catapult off an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean in the early 80s when the Navy plane captain decided that the aircraft was overloaded. I had caught a boat over to the bird farm and was just trying to get from my ship to Cyprus to catch a hop back to the States on PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders. Incidentally, that’s the same path the current American evacuees from Israel are following - from Israel to Cyprus to the States.
The last time I stepped out of an airplane, I had just flown around the world. I didn’t stay aloft for 653 hours, like the Key brothers, Al and Fred, in Meridian who, in 1935 set the world record for sustained flight in their Curtis Robin monoplane named “Ole Miss.” No, my flight was in segments over a two-week period: Pensacola to New York, New York to Rome, Rome to Tokyo, Tokyo to Honolulu, Honolulu to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to New Orleans, New Orleans to Pensacola. This was my last Navy business trip, conducting seminars for Navy chaplains. I would have preferred to have gone by ship, but such a voyage would have taken months, I have sailed around the world three times over the years, but now I’m reduced to one- or two-week cruises on Norwegian, including one during this upcoming Christmas.
In my stone cold, road weary, shopworn old age, I often wonder if it’s just a random universe, overseen by a detached, watchmaker God; or is my death, and that of others, pre-ordained down to the precise minute, place, and circumstance? Then, I read the works of men like Rene Descartes, the medieval French polymath (cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore, I am”), quite possibly the smartest man who ever lived, and whose maxim was “Question everything. Question everything.” – and I feel better.
Light a candle for me.
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Benny Hornsby of Oak Grove is a retired U.S. Navy captain. Visit his website, bennyhornsby.com, or email him: villefranche60@yahoo.com.
