![]() Medical personnel arrived and began to ferry out the injured and the dead. Video of a barechested Pyle at the 1979 Volunteer Jam does not show evidence of a gunshot wound. Pyle claimed in a February 2007 appearance on Howard Stern's Sirius radio program that Mote had shot him Mote has always denied shooting the drummer. Varying accounts have Mote either firing a warning shot into the air or actually shooting Pyle in the shoulder - no report is completely reliable. The three injured men hiked some distance from the crash site, through swampy woods, and finally flagged down farmer Johnny Mote, who had come to investigate. Other band members were injured, some very seriously.ĭrummer Artimus Pyle crawled out of the plane wreckage with several broken ribs, but was ambulatory, as were road crew members Kenneth Peden Jr. The crash killed singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. ![]() A chartered Convair 240, N55VM, carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed near a forest in McComb, Mississippi. In honor of Skynyrd and its fallen members, watch this version of “Freebird” recorded just months before the end.Several members of the band died in a plane crash that occurred on October 20, 1977, three days after the release of Street Survivors. Let’s take a minute to remember those that didn’t make it on that tragic day back in 1977. However, the band would never be the same. Lyrnyrd Skynyrd has gone through various formations since then, and still tours regularly to this day. Taking over band leader Ronnie Van Zant’s role in the band would be, fittingly, his younger brother Johnny Van Zant. ![]() After a decade, they would reunite, along with guitarist Ed King, who had left the band two years before the crash. Drummer Artimus Pyle, along with two crew members, were able to escape the wreckage and seek help from a local farmer and assist other the rest of the survivors.Īfter the accident, surviving members of the band Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle officially disbanded. Following a concert at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, South Carolina, the band members boarded a chartered Convair CV-300 to head to a show down at LSU in Baton Rouge, LA the next night.ĭue to a faulty engine draining fuel at an excessive rate, the plane went down over the swamp while pilots attempted an emergency landing at local airport in Gillsburg, Mississippi. The group just had come off an epic summer tour, and had released Street Survivors a mere three days before the shocking accident. With hits such as “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Simple Man,” and “Free Bird,” which features one of the most memorable guitar solos ever, and is a tribute to fallen Allman Brothers Band founding member Duane Allman, Lynyrd Skynyrd was well on their way. The Jacksonville, FL-based band was well on their way into the legendary canon of the rock n’ roll halls, having cleaned up their act of boozing and fighting, at the behest of Van Zant, and turning into an absolute juggernaut of an act, both live and in the studio. One of the most tragic stories in rock history has got to be the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that took the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and both pilots of the plane, Walter McCreary and William Gray. ![]()
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