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Lynard Skynard Question's?
Nighthawk
Member Posts: 12,022 ✭✭✭
I need your help to settle an argument between me and my wife about Skynard (and she dont even listen to them,how would she know[:(!]). If you can answer these questions I would really appreciate it? I know its not gun related but can you guys tell me the yr of the plane crash? How many of the group was killed, and what instrument did the ones killed play.
Comments
Cassie Gaines = back-up vocals
Ronnie Van Zandt = singer/songwriter
AT
[:(]
That was a tragic day in Rock & Roll history.
Thats an understatement, why did they not have enough fuel to assure they could make it to their destination? I was only 6yrs old at the time, but I grew up on their music. Thanks everyone for the info!
A good read for you is a book called Free Fall- a review of the errors that resulted in an Air Canada jetliner (think a Boeing 757) being run bone dry and flaming out at 41,000 ft. Error by crew in converting lbs/gallons to kilograms/ liters, non-functioning fuel gauge, and mistaking fuel temperature gauge for backup fuel gauge. They DID manage to land aircraft dead stick at a closed RCAF air base, some damage to plane, but it flew again.
Aircraft may also have more than one tank, and if transfer pump does not work, you cannot use the fuel in THAT tank.
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. Aerosmith's assistant chief of flight operations Zunk Buker tells of seeing pilots McCreary and Gray trading a bottle of Jack Daniel's back and forth while he and his father were inspecting the plane. 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.[13]
"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. Contributing to the fuel exhaustion were inadequate flight planning and an engine malfunction of undetermined nature in the right engine which resulted in higher-than-normal fuel consumption."
-NTSB Accident Report[14]
It was known that the right engine's magneto - a small power generator that provides spark and timing for the engine - had been malfunctioning (Powell, among others, spoke of seeing flames shooting out of the right engine on a trip just prior to the accident), and that pilots McCreary and Gray had intended to repair the damaged part when the traveling party arrived in Baton Rouge. Cassie Gaines was reportedly so fearful of flying in the Convair that she offered to ride in the band's equipment truck instead; Ronnie Van Zant had talked her onto the airplane on October 20.[12] It is possible that the damaged magneto fooled the pilots into creating an exceptionally rich fuel mixture, causing the Convair to run out of fuel. It was suggested on the VH-1 Behind The Music profile on Skynyrd that the pilots, panicking when the right engine failed, accidentally dumped the remaining fuel. Pyle maintains in the Howard Stern interview that the fuel gauge in the older model plane malfunctioned and the pilots had failed to manually check the tanks before taking off, although it is common practice in all but the largest transport-category aircraft to manually check fuel quantities to verify fuel gauge indications. In his book Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock, Gene Odom makes an unsubstantiated accusation that co-pilot William Gray was impaired because he had spent part of the previous night snorting cocaine; the toxicology reports from both pilots' autopsies had found them to be clean for drugs and alcohol.
Reportedly Ronnie Van Zant had the final say and said "Let's go, if we die, we die". Or something to that effect.
Later in flight, engine trouble got worse. And to compound things, pilot inadvertanly dumped the fuel while making cockpit engine adjustments.
Ronnie stated many times that he would not live to see 30.
He did not miss it by much.