Updated cover after plane crash, 1977The official NTSB accident report reads, 'The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was fuel exhaustion and total loss of power from both engines due to crew inattention to fuel supply. Aerosmith's touring family was also relieved because the band, specifically Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, had been trying to pressure their management into renting that specific plane. When Aerosmith's crew heard of Skynyrd's misfortune, they were shocked, but not necessarily surprised. In an interview in the book Walk This Way, Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations Zunk Buker tells of seeing pilots McCreary and Gray trading a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth while Buker and his father were inspecting the plane. The Convair 240 itself had been inspected by members of Aerosmith's flight crew for possible use in the early summer of 1977, but was rejected because it was felt that neither the plane nor the crew were up to standards. On hearing of the accident, Billingsley was so shaken that some of her hair fell out. According to an interview in the book Freebirds, Billingsley had dreamed of the plane crash and begged Allen Collins by telephone not to continue using the Convair. She was planning to join the tour in Little Rock on October 23, three days after the crash. Original cover for Street Survivors, 1977Notably, the third member of The Honkettes, JoJo Billingsley, was not on the plane and in fact was home tending to a family member's illness. 12, 2007) that Van Zant's cause of death was trauma to the head caused by equipment, such as Betamax tapes and Trinitrons, flying forward in the plane's cabin. Pyle did confirm (from Pyle's interview on the The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio, Feb.

Despite this faux pas, Powell has been on good terms with the remaining band members since the incident. Powell's version of events has been discounted by both Artimus Pyle and Judy Van Zant Jenness, who posted the autopsy reports on the band's website in early 1998 in order to set the record straight. Powell also claimed that Ronnie Van Zant's head had been smashed. He later caused a controversy by giving a lurid account of Cassie Gaines' final moments on a VH1 Behind The Music special about the band, claiming that the backing singer's throat was cut from ear to ear and that she bled to death in his arms. Pianist Billy Powell survived, but his nose was nearly torn off and he suffered severe facial lacerations. Road crew member Steve Lawler, who suffered severe contusions and facial lacerations, was taken to the hospital in a pickup with a camper top. Victims were taken to the hospital in McComb, Mississippi by ambulances and other vehicles. Security manager Gene Odom was seriously burned on his arm and face and lost the sight in one eye as a result of an emergency flare on board the plane that was activated during the crash. Leslie Hawkins sustained a concussion, broke her neck in three places and had severe facial lacerations. Gary Rossington broke both his arms and both his legs in the crash, and took many months to recuperate. Wilkeson suffered severe internal injuries, including a punctured lung, and had most of his teeth knocked out. Allen Collins suffered two cracked vertebrae in his neck, and both Collins and Leon Wilkeson nearly had arms amputated as a result of crash injuries. 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.

Several members of the band died in a plane crash that occurred on October 20, 1977, three days after the release of Street Survivors.

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