The crash killed singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines. 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. listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and having way, way, way too much fun. Several members of the band died in a plane crash that occurred on October 20, 1977, three days after the release of Street Survivors. Skynyrd piano player Billy Powell is the only band member healthy enough to attend the funeral, and even he is on crutches with stitches on his face from the crash. She said local hospital employees worked through the night to help crash victims without knowing some of them were famous.Ĭurrie said she has always been a fan of the band’s music: “I spent a lot of time in the summers. Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd is laid to rest in a Jacksonville cemetery five days after dying in a plane crash that also killed band members Steve and Cassie Gaines. There were 26 people crammed on this old model of Corvair, a reliable plane, and many are still in service today. Beckie Currie of Brookhaven, who was a student nurse at the time of the crash. Of the 26 passengers and crew on board the doomed flight, there were 20 survivors.
Among those pushing for it was Republican Rep. Mississippi legislators passed a bill requiring the state to provide exit signs for the crash monument. Those killed were singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. Of the 26 people on the plane, 20 survived. And that was without directions leading to the remote site 8 miles (13 kilometres) west of Interstate 55 - in a place with no cellphone service for navigation. The monument has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in southwest Mississippi, since drawing 4,500 people from 13 countries, 39 states and five Canadian provinces. It’s very difficult to get to and there are no markings," said said Bobby McDaniel, president of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument Project. “People were always asking where the crash site is.
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Three large granite markers were put up in Gillsburg in 2019, but until the exit signs were recently added, many people had to guess how to find the site in a wooded area near the Louisiana state line. 20, 1977, plane crash that killed some members of the band. The signs provide direction toward a monument commemorating the Oct. Lynyrd Skynyrd, the rock band famous for “Sweet Home Alabama" and “Free Bird,” now has highway signs pointing to the site of the Mississippi plane crash that claimed the lives of some of its members.įans gathered Sunday as the Mississippi Department of Transportation unveiled exit signs from Interstate 55 near McComb and state Highway 568 near Gillsburg, the Enterprise-Journal reported. the FAA office takes action to assure that there is a clear understanding by the lessee as to who is the operator and what responsibilities and obligations are thereby assumed.GILLSBURG, Miss.
This requirement should serve to protect innocent lessees if. The plane kept on flying, and to everyone’s relief, it made it to Greenville. In adopting the amendment, the FAA stated that the purpose of the new requirement was to give the FAA notice prior to the flight and thereby an opportunity to conduct preflight surveillance of lease and contract operations. The plane eventually leveled out at 12,000 feet and after several minutes, the fire extinguished.
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In November 1977, FAA amended CFR 91.54 to require that lessees notify the nearest FAA office 48 hours prior to the first flight under a lease and provide information concerning (1) the departure airport, (2) time of departure, and (3) the registration number of the aircraft. "It therefore appears to the Safety Board that whether this lease was or was not adequate is not the primary safety problem, but how does the system in such a case protect a lessee who is uninformed either by design, by inadvertence, or by his own carelessness.