Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash Site

On the evening of October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-240 charter aircraft carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd ran out of fuel over the pine forests of southwestern Mississippi. The plane had departed Greenville, South Carolina, bound for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the band was scheduled to play the following night. Both engines failed. The pilot and co-pilot attempted an emergency landing on a rural road near Gillsburg in Amite County, but the aircraft clipped the trees, broke apart, and crashed into a heavily wooded swamp.

Six people were killed: lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister), road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray. Twenty others survived with injuries ranging from severe to critical, including guitarist Gary Rossington, bassist Leon Wilkeson, drummer Artimus Pyle, and keyboardist Billy Powell. Pyle, despite broken ribs, walked through the swamp to a nearby farmhouse to get help — the farmer initially greeted him with a shotgun before realising what had happened.

Lynyrd Skynyrd had been one of the defining Southern rock bands of the 1970s. "Free Bird", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Tuesday's Gone", "Simple Man", and "Gimme Three Steps" had made them one of the most popular live acts in America. Their album Street Survivors had been released just three days before the crash, with a cover photograph showing the band surrounded by flames — an image so grimly prophetic that MCA Records recalled it within days and reissued the album with a plain black background. Ronnie Van Zant was twenty-nine years old.

The band had known the plane was dangerous. The Convair CV-240 was old, poorly maintained, and had been a source of anxiety throughout the tour. Several people associated with the band, including the Gaines siblings' parents, had expressed concerns about the aircraft before the flight. Aerosmith had reportedly been offered the same plane earlier in the year and turned it down after their crew inspected it.

The crash site near Gillsburg is accessible via a rural back road in deep Mississippi countryside. A memorial monument erected by fans marks the location, and the site draws pilgrims from the Southern rock world year-round. The swampland has changed little in the decades since — the same dense pines, the same quiet. Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines are buried at Jacksonville Memory Gardens in Orange Park, Florida. The surviving members eventually reformed the band in 1987 with Ronnie's younger brother Johnny Van Zant on vocals, a lineup that continues to tour today.