Original subtitles

- Ronnie liked to talk.

He was no bragger,

he didn't need no sympathy, none of that stuff.

But after several shots of whiskey

when he was a little tipsy,

at that point in time Ronnie Van Zant

looked for sympathy or attention.

And so, something would bring up this,

I don't think I'm gonna live to be 29.

- October 20th 1977,

Gene Odom lost his best friend,

and the world lost the leader of the hugely popular

southern rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

- We weren't happy with this airplane.

- Pilot says everything's good, let's go.

If it's your time to go, it's your time to go.

- Gene came back and told us to buckle up.

We were gonna try to put it down

and then some people panicked

and it got a little tense.

- We started clipping trees

and then it went bang, bang, bang

and that's all I remember.

- The plane crash in Gillsburgh, Mississippi

killed Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines,

Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary

and copilot William Gray.

Gene Odom, the band's security guard

and Van Zant's lifelong friend and fishing buddy

survived the crash and along with several others

including Leslie Hawkins, the lead backup singer,

and Craig Reed, the band's guitar tech.

They share their stories of the 72 hours

leading up to the crash and its aftermath.

This is a tribute, a celebration,

a reminder that I'll Never Forget You.

- Ronnie lived on this side of Woodcrest

and I lived on that side of Woodcrest

but we still grew up together, playing ball

and riding bikes, running around, you know.

And fishing buddies, we loved to fish.

- He was always with Ronnie when I saw him

and they were such good friends and always fishing buddies.

- And we didn't know how to fish back then

because a lot of times we would lose 'em

because the line couldn't handle some of them big ol' bass

but we caught thousands of 'em

and we really got into it.

But what Ronnie Van Zant always wanted

was an old truck and he wanted a trophy bass

and April or May of that year whatever,

he got him that old 55 Chevy truck.

This was May of 77.

He called me and said, "Man, let's go fishing.

"Come pick me up, we'll go to the lake."

We started fishing, he was in front of the boat.

I was in the back of the boat, paddling or whatever.

He had a purple nine inch monster worm.

He throwed it in the eelgrass and that worm hit the water,

when it hit the water.

I said man there's your trophy bass, son.

Set the hook and keep him out of that grass.

I got him now, roll that big ol' bass over in the boat.

Ronnie Van Zant, I thought he was gonna swamp the boat.

Ron's screaming, I just suck at this!

He grabbed me.

Man, Gene, this is it.

I said yeah, no doubt, let's go weigh it.

So we went and weighed it.

It weighed 12 pounds, eight ounces,

that was his trophy bass.

And he got that bass back from the taxidermy

just before the plane crash.

So he did get the two things he wanted.

He wanted that old truck and he wanted the big bass

and he got those and I'm mighty proud

that I was with him in that boat

that day that he got that big ol' bass.

- Allen and Bob were in my English class in school

and those guys were the funniest two.

You saw one, you saw the other

and they're always pulling tricks and stuff.

Allen sat behind me in English class

and then Bob sat behind Allen

so Bobby was always beating on the back of his chair

and then Allen was playing with my hair,

I had real long hair.

Lynda, you got a pencil?

He was always bugging me for pencils, paper,

you name it, he was ready.

He was ready 'cause of me.

Ronnie, he was one of a kind.

He was great, everybody loved him.

I was here to hear One Percent.

It was great, everybody, all the people from school,

we were all out here, everybody dancing

and having a good time, they loved 'em.

They loved 'em and we just knew he was gonna do something

and he sure did.

- He worked at his brother in law's auto parts store,

Morris Auto Supply

way over on University and Beach Boulevard

and Ronnie became the manager of that store

and I went there parts running

and this was somewhere in 69.

Back then if stores sold so much,

thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars

worth of stock they would get

an all expense paid vacation somewhere,

wherever it was that year.

That year it was Honolulu, Hawaii.

He gave the two free tickets, all expense paid,

Honolulu to Lacy.

Sister wouldn't fly, Ronnie Van Zant hated to fly,

he wouldn't fly, Donnie and Johnny,

the other kids were just too young,

so Lacy asked me do you want to go to Honolulu

on an all expense paid weeks vacation

and I went yeah, I'm in.

Went to Honolulu, Hawaii, all expense paid vacation,

came back home, my draft papers was in the mailbox.

I was drafted May of 1969.

Everybody was getting drafted

and we knew Ronnie wouldn't be because he was 4F.

All of his friends, my friends, our friends,

they all got drafted and I went to go into basic training

and I went to artillery training in Oklahoma,

then expecting to go to Vietnam.

Then my orders come down and I was sent to Germany

and so, fantastic.

When I got there, the night I got there,

the officer was checking my records,

yeah, you gonna be an A battery.

Oh they like to fight

and people like to get drunk and fight.

I said I don't drink but I like to fight,

so I'll be right at home.

Then he was flipping on me, he went, you're a welder.

I said yeah, I'm a union hour worker, I'm a welder.

He said man, our welder died yesterday,

I'm battalion maintenance, you're gonna be the new welder.

I went well, the best job in the world.

Pulled no duty, within 13 months I was an E5, spec five.

So I went from welder to parts runner

and I loved both of 'em.

I would always get things done when I go DX parts.

There was something we needed

because everything was going to Vietnam,

we couldn't get parts.

I'd go out there and talk to the sergeant

and say man, I need to get this off of the truck,

we're arguing, so I'd hustle parts and get things fixed

and so one officer said before you get out of here

we like what you do, we'll give you staff sergeant E6 today

and 10,000 dollars VRB, variable reenlistment bonus

and guarantee you in three years you'll be a warrant officer

if you reenlist, and I said no sir,

I'm a freebird, I like to go fishing,

I don't want to be tied down like this.

The biggest mistake of my life was not doing that.

The second biggest mistake of my life

was going to work for the band

and so if I'd have stayed in the Army

I'd have been an officer,

but I wouldn't have been with my buddy when he passed away.

God has his, they say he has his reasons for everything

and he don't tell you what they are.

- I was the first one hired and I was leader of the girls.

I got hired probably in November

before we started rehearsals in December.

Then Cass and Joe came in to audition

and it worked so wasn't much to it.

We started rehearsing and there you go.

We did our first gig right about New Year's in London.

- People say how did you get involved with them?

It's weird, it's like I was just put there.

I had a 10 minute window to meet this band

and I kind of hit it.

I was just right there when I needed to be, it was crazy.

I was checking into a hotel with some lady.

I just got divorced from one

and going right into another one

and we went into a hotel and as I was checking in

the lady said that The Who were staying

in the rooms adjoining me and I went The Who

in a Holiday Inn in Kent, right.

So I went around there and here's two roadies

unloading a U-Haul trailer pulled by a four door

Econoline van and obviously not The Who

and I said hey y'all playing here in the hotel?

And he goes we're Lynyrd Skynyrd

and I had never heard of them at that time

and he said we just got off tour with The Who

and I go oh, that's where that came from.

So Allen and Billy and Gary stuck their head around

and told the roadies to ask 'em if I had some weed,

which I did, so that kind of was how I met 'em

and so I was partying with them the weekend

and I just kind of got along with them

and I was a mechanic so I'm kind of mechanically inclined

and they were working around and I just kind of fitted in

and Ed figured they could train me to set up drums.

So that's what I did and Ed said he wanted to hire me

and Ronnie said the Yankee?

He's a fucking Yankee.

He was a nice guy but there's people

that I would rather hire than some Yankee

so he told Ed if I didn't work out

he was gonna kick his ass.

I think they were looking for a street person like I was

that could manipulate whatever they needed

because that's kind of what I was doing.

So I kind of furnished them

and I remember the first show I did

in San Diego, California,

we opened up for Dave Mason and after I got done

setting up the drums and tearing down the drums

because we were the opening act

I went out and picked up women and drugs

out of the audience and brought them backstage,

so that was kind of my job.

- I actually didn't party when we were at home.

I didn't hang out with anybody.

I had two kids, they were 11 and 12

at the time of the crash,

so when we came home I went home

and came out when we went again

or if we had to rehearse or whatever

which after the initial rehearsal period

there wasn't a whole lot of that

and we just, Ronnie knew what he wanted,

when we came in we put it together and there you go.

And we did a lot of things together,

we had dinners and food fights

and there was just a lot that went on.

Just every day was pretty crazy.

I remember Billy got locked out in the hall

without his clothes one night,

that was Dean and Leon threw somebody in his room

and he came out screaming and cussing at Leon

with nothing but his boots on

and they locked him out of his room.

There were things like that that were probably

not real funny to other people

but pretty funny from a distance which is where I was.

It did get old being thrown out

but we got thrown out of some really nice places.

It was just always something going on.

- Throwing TV's in the pool from the 10th floor

while they're plugged in.

We would go get an extension cord

so it was on when it hit the pool.

You'd get attempted murder or something these days

for that stuff, you know.

We'd take the fire hose down

and stick it under somebody's door and turn it on.

Soak the whole floor, have to pay for all the carpet,

that was insane.

We got throwed out of every hotel in Denver,

Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Saint Louis, London.

- Another time in London we had been there

and somebody had a row with a carney,

it was a carney convention going on

and somebody got in a row about that

and first thing you know Artimus and Gary

are breaking into the convention room

and wanted to have a fight with the carneys.

Oops, wrong room, it was the Police Boxing League,

so that didn't turn out too well.

So we had to leave another nice hotel.

- As long as I could party,

anybody in the band, that's what was going on,

we were allowed to do it as long as we performed

when we were supposed to,

we could do anything we wanted to do,

which is kind of, you're teetering on the edge there.

So you couldn't get away with that stuff these days

that we did, you'd be thrown in prison.

I was pretty bad.

As a professional roadie, I wouldn't consider myself.

I was 26 years old when the plane crashed

and I was just a professional partier

that happened to do guitars as far as I'm concerned

but when the plane crashed it was weird

because people wanted Lynyrd Skynyrd's guitar tech

and that was me and I was far from being professional.

As far as I was concerned but it was kind of cool

because I worked for Lynyrd Skynyrd, Journey and Foreigner

so I was the guitar tech for three bands

that are in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame

and I don't even play guitar.

- It was winter of 76, he called me up,

he said let's go get something to eat or whatever.

Me and Judy is gonna come by and pick you up.

And he says you want to do this?

I want you to be my bodyguard

and get it straightened up.

He was off this stuff.

Man, I was still,

I'm not sure I wanted to be a part of this.

- Gene was like Ronnie's best friend

from childhood, I had heard stories about Gene from Ronnie.

Ronnie and I got pretty close before Gene got involved

so he had told me stories about the Odom family

and how rowdy they were.

And then it was weird because when Gene came in,

Gene didn't do any drugs

and didn't ever smoke pot or drink liquor or nothing,

so he was just kind of.

- I never do it.

Never drank, never done drugs, never will.

I take heart medicine, stuff like that,

prescription medicine for my heart

but I've never smoked a cigarette, never tasted alcohol,

so he says okay, this is a summer tour,

let's just go out there and do what you can do

and let's think about this, let's talk about this,

but I want you to work for me,

I want you to take care of us,

I want you to get us off of this crap.

So I did.

- So I really didn't know him that well

other than coming and going.

He was with Ronnie a lot

and I knew that he had been friends with Ronnie for years.

- Gene was kind of like today like Lebron James

when he brings his posse on

and they kind of travel with him,

that's kind of like what Ronnie wanted

to bring some of his childhood friends into the situation.

- I knew him, we were there together,

he was just running people offstage that didn't belong

and trying to do his job and we were trying to do our job

but who he was having to focus on

were the people that had a big drug and alcohol problem.

- Gene kind of, Ronnie brought Gene in

just as another pair of eyes,

just kind of hey Gene, blend in, look around,

tell me what you see and so he did.

He saw what I did, what Chuck, Raymond, Joe Barnes,

Kevin and just kind of went around

and checked out what was going on

and then went and reported to his buddy Ronnie

what was happening and there was a lot of

information came around and I was also,

I kind of was an insider for Ronnie.

He'd say hey, if you see anything going on, let me know.

This is a working machine kind of thing

and if there's a loose cog, let's fix it.

And if I don't know about, we can't fix it.

Let's work together as a team

and get in there and go and that's kind of what we did.

Ronnie wanted to clean it up,

but he needed to look in the mirror

and clean himself up too

because he was bitching about people drinking

while he was drunk.

- At the time Gene came in, there were a lot of problems

that were from excessive alcohol

and just kind of you get bored and you go off the deep end

and there had been a lot of that going on for a long time

and Allen was starting to have trouble

with numbness in his hands

and it was just kind of getting out of hand

and it was either tighten up for longevity

or it would be live hard, die young

and that was gonna be the fate of the band pretty much

Ronnie felt like if it didn't get straightened out.

He was just trying to keep everybody headed

in a better direction, so that was Gene's job.

Just kind of tighten it up, stay on track

or I'll beat ya.

Not really but you know what I mean.

- To start out, I would go to the show early,

take a taxi or limousine over.

And there would always be whiskey and booze.

I started taking bottles, putting 'em in towels,

wrapping 'em up, hiding them, giving them to security

or giving them to people so they wouldn't be in there

when the band came in and the crew all this liquor

and the crew come in, get a few drinks,

and when the band come in, so I weened them off of alcohol

to a certain point.

And Ronnie, the drugs, the drugs would be next.

He says this is gonna be a little more difficult

than the liquor thing that you're doing.

You're doing a good job.

Anaheim, California, 93,000 people,

they go ahead with Peter Frampton run two shows there,

one day and the next day.

Ronnie and Allen and Gary come walking down the hill

all the way toward me.

Ronnie grabbed me, he said man,

there's 93,000 people out there

and we just kicked their butts sober.

We're all sober thanks to you Gene, keep it up, man.

And Gary and Allen went yeah man, you're doing great.

They might've had a drink but they weren't drunk.

- Some different reactions.

Sometimes.

Everybody liked Gene, it wasn't that there was any problem

as far as personality or anything.

There were some people that were a little disgruntled

about not as much alcohol around

and I heard the word babysitter used a couple of times,

they didn't like having a babysitter,

but it's sometimes appreciated, sometimes not.

- He took his job as what I'm supposed to do

and he did it well.

Whether people liked it or not, he was there

and he was gonna protect him no matter what.

And not just Ronnie, the whole band.

He was good at that.

- And everybody had their job.

Ron did this and that and Dean Kilpatrick

kind of kept Ronnie's, did more personal things,

and then Gene just came in light a watchdog,

so sometimes the dog's happy and sometimes he's not.

- When they were getting clean

and that was Gene's main job,

to keep those boys clean, especially Ronnie,

and they were all happy and excited,

everything was going right.

- October 17th of 77 we were rooming together

on that tour because we were setting everything up,

we needed to talk so he didn't want to be

wandering around to different rooms

so they had lined up an autograph session, an album signing,

at the Altamont Mall there,

Tower Records I believe it was.

Ronnie remained in his bed.

I say at a budget meeting, tour schedules are coming up

and you're doing a budget,

I said what happens when y'all are all sitting

around table to do the budget and everything's set.

He said what do you mean.

I said when you're sitting there at the table

before you and Gary sign the checks,

what happens, what goes on?

Man, I don't understand what you're talking about.

We just had a meeting.

We were talking about the budget and everything.

I say there's a lot of liquor and there's a lot of cocaine,

a lot of drugs.

By the time you sign the check,

you're drugged out and you're drunk.

You're tipsy and you invest in everything he's saying.

Just sign it.

- There was a lot of money being made, they were superstars,

and the money should've been a lot more.

It was good money, but it took a while for them to get that.

- Ronnie was most certain,

there were gonna be changes, everybody knew that.

- I feel that they just are robbing you

and he said man, I'm just not sure Gene.

I said listen, your merchandising, where's that money going?

They're putting it in savings accounts.

I said you don't even own your merchandising business.

Your manager and your secretary

own your merchandising business.

- If you look at the live album on the inside

where Dean had drawn pictures of everybody,

I'm the one on the soapbox

and there's somebody standing on the side throwing money,

well that was Mary Beth from the office.

She was also responsible for making sure I had insurance,

so he knew a lot of money was being thrown away

and we were losing a lot of money

here and there and everywhere

and of course right after the crash,

supposedly, second hand info for me,

was that a million dollars was not accounted for immediately

in concessions but Ronnie knew there were problems

and that was gonna be dealt with, we all knew that,

but how, who, how, what, I wasn't privy to any of that.

- Now what's your plan?

I said the plan is take over, take your management.

Bring it back, bring it to you.

I said you want to fire the management

or you want me to fire them?

And he says, so we get a legal team, get legal advice,

and he said I want the lawyer to handle all that

because I don't want to,

I'm gonna be there, or be in another room,

but we gonna have this all legal.

He said because there's gonna be a big lawsuit,

their management gonna sue.

He says I'm ready.

So I set a legal team up

that the day after the tour, the fall tour,

the day after that tour's over

they were gonna come to the office

and say look here, this is the new address,

this is where everything comes, to this new headquarters.

And he says you're not ready to be a manager.

I said no I'm not, I can manage the security.

I said number one I'm not smart enough.

I said Bill Fares.

I'm not sure Bill Fares wants to travel,

be on stage, got a college education, good, good man.

He said I'm not sure he wants to travel,

I said he don't have to travel.

Bill can do this out of his house.

And Ronnie you're the one that told me to manage a band

all you need is a telephone.

He said yeah, you're right.

I said okay, so he says everything's under control.

I said yeah, the day after the tour's over,

we'll be there in the office.

I said okay, now can I tell the band what I'm really doing?

No, nope, can't tell anybody,

my wife don't know.

Nobody knows until this thing, the hammer falls.

Don't say nothing.

Okay, I promise, so nobody knew.

This was two nights before the plane crashed

in Lakeland, Florida.

October 18th, we finished the show and we come back

after the shows over, get back to the hotel and everything.

We talked again because he was really jittery

about what was fixing to come down the road

and he was more concerned about it not getting out.

Making sure that nobody knew nothing.

So then we basically just got ready to fly

and then we got up the next day to go

to Greenville, South Carolina

and that's when it started, the nightmare on the plane.

We boarded the plane, uneventful,

like the rest of the boarding the planes, whatever.

So taxiing down the runway

and as the plane started to lift off,

we got up, not far, a few feet or whatever,

and the right engine, which I was sitting,

the right engine was right there.

We had a poker table back there, I was sitting here,

and a ball of fire, blew fire 15 feet long

come out the back of it, pow-boom!

I don't know if you've ever been

in a situation like that but it scared the tar

out of me and everybody else

and so I thought the engine blowed up

so I get out of my seat and they're getting up,

52 degree angles, so I'm pulling myself to the cockpit

and I get between the door.

Walter McCreary and John Gray, the copilot.

I said hey, better turn the plane around, man,

the engine blowed up.

And they're fighting the plane to get up.

Just go sit down, we know what to do with this plane.

I said man, that engine blowed up

and a ball of fire just came out of it.

I said turn the plane around,

turn the plane around right now.

That's it, land it.

And so he said, man, there's nothing wrong with that,

you need to go sit down, strap yourself in.

Sit down as they fight

and the engine was performing at that point.

So we got up to altitude and I went back up there.

I said y'all need to turn this thing around,

that engine, they said man,

there aint nothing wrong with that engine,

that engine's fine.

I said it backfired, did something,

blowed a ball of fire out.

He said, then he kind of got a little,

the Walter McCreary guy said look here,

there ain't nothing wrong with that engine,

nothing wrong with this plane, everything's fine.

- We weren't happy with this airplane.

My son had been out with us in South Florida

and we had a problem, the plane didn't want to start

and we actually stopped in Gainesville the day before

and let my son off.

I had my Mom come pick him up

because I was afraid for him to be out on it.

And it was well, we're getting rid of this plane,

we're not gonna have this,

just put up with it a little bit longer, it's okay.

The plane wasn't right, we all knew it wasn't right

and as a mother you don't,

you'll chance things yourself

that you're not gonna chance with your children.

And if there's anything you're not happy with,

then don't do it.

Cass did not wanna fly when we were in Greenville,

but she had wanted to go in the trucks

and they had already gone,

they went straight from the gig and hit the road

because it was a long ride to Baton Rouge.

She just didn't wanna be on the plane

and I don't know when that came about,

if the feeling just grew,

but at that point she wanted to fly commercial.

And so we checked, we called some of the airlines

and there was a possibility of going commercial,

but it was gonna be close.

When we came in was gonna be close to gig time

and we had to have permission to do that

so we had gone to talk to the pilots,

that was the first thing we did

and ran into John Gray in the courtyard

and they thought that everything was okay.

Both of them, neither one of them were impaired

or anything like that.

McCreary was real straitlaced,

didn't drink, didn't do anything.

He was ex military

and inspired confidence,

and of course they were flying the plane.

They felt comfortable so I didn't have that feeling

that Cass had and we went to Ronnie's room

and he was already mad when we got there.

There had been a personal matter

and so Ronnie was trying to sleep, couldn't sleep,

and just basically it was you're on that plane.

It's fine, you're on the plane or hit the road.

Right then he was mad and he was tired

so anyway, we were on the plane.

- And so the 20th was a day off.

We got up after the show in Greenville

which was a fantastic show.

I went to check with the pilots in their room

but they weren't there so I went down to the front desk

to ask them about the pilots

and the girl said they went out to the airport.

So I took a taxi cab or a limousine,

I can't remember now, out to the airport

and they had the cowl thing pulled back,

the separator pulled back and they were working on it.

As I walked up, they put the cowl back on it,

whatever you call that thing.

And I said hey what's up,

they said we just checking this thing out.

I says we gonna get it fixed before we leave?

Said we think we got mag needle problem,

got a problem with the mag needle

and we're gonna fly to Baton Rouge.

I said we got the day off, fix it here.

The mechanic's flying to Baton Rouge.

I said have the mechanic fly here.

He said no, we're gonna fly to Baton Rouge.

I said yeah, but I'm security for this band

and I want you to have the mechanic fly here

and fix the plane here

and he said you don't make them decisions.

I said man, look here, this ain't no car.

I said you got a problem, fix it here.

He said listen, you don't know nothing about this,

I'm the pilot,

I tell you what to do on this plane.

I said yeah, we ain't on the plane right now

and you're making a big mistake.

He said no, I can fly this plane on one engine if I have to.

Who would be so stupid to try to fly a plane,

he said listen, I know what I'm doing.

I said you gonna take this plane up in the air

with a problem when you can fix it here?

And I said why you wanna be so stupid.

He says I snap my fingers and make one phone call

and you'll be off of this plane.

It don't make no difference,

I said you're still a fool to take this thing up

with a problem, it's not a car.

He said, you say one more thing to me.

And I was got my pocket knife out,

I was gonna walk up and stab the tire on the plane

so he couldn't go up with it

but between 50, 60 feet or whatever it was

I'm thinking if I do that, that tire's gonna explode

because it's got so much air pressure on that airplane

its gonna probably blow my head off

or kill me or mess the tarmac up, be sued or something.

I turn around, I come back I said,

I put my pocket knife back in my pocket

and I said man, and he said listen,

don't you say another word to me

or I'll take you off of this plane.

He said I know what I'm doing.

I said there's a whole lot of people on this plane

that I'm responsible for.

He says I told you again,

I'm the pilot, I'm responsible.

I know what I'm doing.

You do your job, I'll do mine.

I said you're a fool and I walked away.

But it all boiled down to okay,

we've got a night off.

Would you rather have the night off

in Greenville, South Carolina

or have the night off in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

That was the reason that they chose to fly,

or the combination of things.

Okay, we'd rather have the night off and party

in Baton Rouge than have the night off and party

I little old hillbilly hick-ville

Greenville, South Carolina.

So that was throwed into the package.

Okay, okay, alright, the pilot says everything's good.

Don't worry about Gene Odom,

the pilot says everything's safe, you can fly.

That really ate at my heart for a long time

because I should've stopped the plane

but I didn't and he depended on me to take care of him

and that ate me up for years and still does.

And at the very last minute, Ronnie Van Zant,

hey okay, pilot says everything's good, let's go.

If it's your time to go, it's your time to go.

Ronnie Van Zant just didn't know it was his time to go.

And so we boarded the plane,

but pilot error, pilot ignorance,

and they had an engine problem

that they didn't know what it was.

In the FAA report, they checked both mag needles,

both mag needles worked properly

so it wasn't a mag needle problem

that they thought they was having,

it was a problem that they didn't know what it was

but took it up, they took the plane up.

- I was pretty hungover still

and I was like rolled on the plane

and I think Mark Howard, I wanted to play cards,

so I think Mark Howard scooted over to the aisle

from the aisle to the window

so I could just fall in that chair

and he got pretty messed up in the plane

because he was on the outside.

He got his hips messed up pretty good

but I escaped it pretty good,

it was just my ribs and a concussion and stuff.

- Ronnie had come to me when we first got on the plane,

he was up all night the night before.

He said man, I gotta get some sleep,

I took two sleeping pills,

one of the girls gave me two sleeping pills

so I gotta get to sleep.

So I said here's a pillow,

there's a table there by the couch.

Gary, Allen and Kevin Elson were sitting on the couch

at a little skinny table there.

I says lay down in here under their feet

and people can walk to the galley back and forth

and won't be interfering so he was over there.

- I was over the wing on the right side

and Cass was over the wing on the left side.

- We're playing poker, we're flying on there

and the engine started.

Engine starts sputtering, we start running out of gas.

And then they would start and then when an engine

would suck up some fuel and pull the air,

it would spin the plane sideways.

And you're 10,000, 12,000 feet in the air.

That aint no place to be doing

no kind of crazy stuff like that.

Everybody shook up, Kevin goes I'll run back to the pilot.

Billy Powell said they were changing fuel tanks.

They were trying to figure out why there was no fuel.

They were trying to do everything they could do.

And so I run up to the cockpit

and I see now see.

And he went strap everybody in,

get everybody up and strap 'em in

and we're going back a belly landing.

- Gene came back and told us to buckle up,

we were gonna try to put it down.

And then some people panicked

and it got a little tense.

- I kicked Ronnie in the ribs, get up man!

And I went back up there and I said

now see what you've done.

And then it lost its airspeed

and it started coming in.

I knew we weren't gonna make that field.

I said see what you've done,

now we're not gonna make it.

I said I hope y'all live through this

so I can kill both of ya.

I ran, got and grabbed Ronnie up off the floor,

he was zonked out from those two sleeping pills,

I mean zonked.

I grabbed him up and I went get up man.

I pushed him around I guess,

the plane's crashing, man.

He's don't be messing with me man, I gotta get some rest.

Come on, man.

I push him and I'm strapping him in

I said man, I'm not joking.

I said, I've got him put up, he's put up,

I said the plane's crashing man, I'm not.

Come on, man.

So I slapped him, I said the damn plane's crashing!

Put your head down!

- There wasn't anything you could do about it

so you just buckled up and prayed.

- The night of the crash, I was the fire chief

of the Gillsburg Volunteer Fire Department.

And when I walked in the house, the phone rang.

It Stewart Hetfield, he was a member of the fire department

and he lived in Gillsburg.

He had saw a plane go over his house

and it looked like it was going down

so we just took up the highway towards McComb.

Didn't know really where to go

but when we got to this area I could see the helicopter.

- Then the phone rang and my aunt called and said

there's a plane going down straight towards your house.

So then we realized what that helicopter was doing.

- When I got in the woods it was dark up in the woods

and it was getting dark in the field

and I went to the airplane,

I got down on my hands and knees,

I prayed to God, help me and help them.

And when I raised up and walked to the plane,

the first person I saw was the pilot

and he was upside down and I knew I couldn't help him.

I'm gonna say I was the first one at the plane crash,

there was nobody there

when I walked around that plane twice but me.

- It was six o'clock, 6:30, getting a little dark

and at that time I was planting rye grass

and they needed a big tractor up there

to help move the stuff around

so I brought my tractor up here.

- I was in a local drug store called the K and B

and I heard on the radio inside the store

broke in about a plane crash outside of Magnolia.

I radioed for the crash site

and they told me the crash site, directions

and I had them to repeat it two other times

because it was directing me straight to my family farm

and arriving out here I saw what looked

like a command center being put together.

We need to be able to get across the field

and across that creek because the plane crash

is on the other side of the creek.

- When I woke up I was laid out across the headrest

on the left side which was next to Bill.

He had laid me across there

and all I could see, I couldn't move my head.

Of course I broke my neck but not fatally

and it didn't wanna move so I just was still

and all I could see was a wall of debris

and somebody's legs, somebody's short stubby legs,

so I'm not sure to this day who that was.

Billy, Leon, Gary, all of them,

it could've been any of the three of them.

- But the plane to me was upside down.

When it came in for the crash,

the front when it hit the ground,

to me it twisted and the front of the plane

was upside down now

and when it hit the tree it kind of bent.

- The plane was split open on the side.

I think that's where some of them got thrown out.

There was a hand sticking out out of the crack.

A bloody hand, I could see that

and I could hear people moaning

and saying get me out of here.

- It was a lot of drumsticks and guitars

and the girl's purse and everything laying around.

- Everything in there, everything in the plane had blown,

playing cards, just everything was covered

pretty much in playing cards it seemed like

and every playing card had blood on it.

- I was the only person throwed out of the plane.

Fortunately when I went through it,

you could see these slashes across my hand.

That's where I went through the fuselage,

so there must've been just enough room to get through it,

might've had a point right there for me to go through.

And so I was jettisoned up under the right wing

and I was the only person burnt by whatever it was,

come to find out I'm a Navy pilot, it was phosphorous,

a flare, those old planes didn't have no deicing equipment

and they would pop flares to deice them planes

in freezing conditions.

So I'm there on that plane under that wing,

in that wing was a flare

that partially ignited and that's what melted my eye

and melted, burnt my skin.

Leather black, I had burnt holes all in me

melting my eye, burnt a big hole in the side of my face.

- I just climbed, somehow climbed up on the belly

of the plane and when I did there was a crack

and I stuck my finger in that crack,

there was some dirt there and when I did

I poked somebody in the eye and they were alive.

So I told them close their eyes and I took that hatchet

and I started working on that plane.

- And then when they came to get us,

the fuselage was broken in two above me

and there was a piece of the fuselage that was coming down

towards my face with somebody walking up there

and I remember telling him

be careful where you walk up there,

there's people underneath you here

because it looked like that jagged metal

looked like it was coming towards my face

and I couldn't move.

- Then I was able to peel that fuselage back,

shine that flashlight up in there

and the first guy I saw, long hair, full beard

and I was thinking what's and all,

some of the rest of 'em saying what,

the thought went through my head,

what's a bunch of hippies doing on an airplane

because back in those days the hippies we knew

they were broke,

they didn't have jobs or anything like that.

- It was like a jigsaw puzzle.

Some people, yes, you picked up,

but some you had to move this chair

or cut this seatbelt or do something to get people out.

- Someone was kind of triaging

and separating the injured and the dead.

- And there was one guy in particular

I was really concerned about.

He was sitting there and he had his hand like this

on his stomach and I could see blood just pouring

out of his fingers, between his fingers

and I'm thinking he's gonna die, bleed to death

before we get him out.

So it had been several hours and I came down off the plane

and I walked out there and I see the guy laying there.

I was angry about it, I said what are y'all doing,

this guy's gonna die, let's get him out of here.

So we grabbed the gurney

and he was the first one we took across the creek.

- And we started taking the injured out one by one

and went across the creek and when we crossed,

it had about 16, 18 inches of water in it

and entering the creek wasn't that bad,

but on the other side the bank was pretty steep

and there were people, plenty of people on the other side

helping to get the stretcher on up

and there was some four wheel drive pickup trucks

and they burse some hay

and laid in the back of the pickup trucks

to lay the injured in and take them across the field

to where the ambulances wait.

- They sandbagged me and took me out through the

break in the fuselage and they laid us all on the ground

and of course I couldn't really see anybody else

and somebody came and laid beside me

and I think they were pretty much doing that

for a lot of people just to keep you warm

because it was cold.

It was October, Mississippi, in the swamp

and then when they carried us out

I was on a stretcher and I just remembered

that it felt like I was gonna fall off the stretcher

because they were having to carry us literally

through the swamp and tripping I guess

probably over who knows what trying to get us out of there

and then when they got us to the ambulance

I was actually in an ambulance with Leon

and somebody else and I'm not sure who was on my left,

I don't remember, but Leon was hurt real bad

and he was starting to have convulsions

and they were trying to get an IV in my arm

and I remember telling 'em I'm okay, to get Leon.

- As far as the crash, once I left Ronnie's side,

that was it for me, I was out there

and up under that engine and under that wing

and nobody in the band or crew knew I was under there.

Nobody knew it until I pulled out of there

and Billy, they set him on the wing,

'cause his nose was cut real bad on the bridge of his nose.

He was sitting there and he said

you just crawled out from underneath him

and reached at me and blood everywhere,

you had a big hole in your head,

big, black, bloody hole.

He started pushing back

then he would reach for me and he would try to say something

and I'd push him back.

I said why do you push me back for

and he said because I thought you was gonna

get a hold of my nose and pull my nose off.

I said, well, I guess.

- And of course the ones that were deceased

were kind of set to the side

and after things had calmed down

we said it's time to get them out.

- And then everybody, we got 'em all moved out

and that's when I found out who they were, they were gone.

- I saw this reporter coming,

I recognized her, I see her on TV all the time.

- They sent me back,

you said you were the first one here

and I said yes, sir.

But then she was the one that told me who was on the plane

and I was kind of ignorant.

She said Lynyrd Skynyrd and I said which one was he

and she said no, that's the name of the band

and then when she refreshed my memory

about Sweet Home Alabama, it kind of come to me,

but that's when I found out, hours later.

- That time I was small

and I was the one that crawled up under it

and got the briefcase and things

and threw 'em out.

A lot of people said there was a lot of money missing

but it wasn't up under there.

I saw a lot of checks and things but no cash.

- We were just, I say country boys.

We thought we was something,

we thought we was going somewhere at that time,

but whenever this happened, it just brought out who we are,

it brought out the best of us.

And none of us was trained in any type of first aid

or rescue or anything like that.

We just all jumped in and done

what we felt like was natural.

- There was a lot of people there helping,

they went up in the plane but they were outside.

They was up here on the highway.

- And we took care of business that night

and got back to our own lives.

- I guess I had a lot of blood.

My face was pretty cut up

and they weren't sure if I was Cass or myself.

And they came and asked us and it went out

over the Biscuit Hour that I was a casualty.

So that was what they announced

so my family had to deal with that for a few hours

before they found out that I was okay.

But the first thing I remember is coming through

the emergency doors and the last thing I remember

is going back out 'em.

Woke up a couple days later, I guess.

- I was unconscious for at least a week

and I remember waking up and going,

looking up and saying where am I, what am I doing here?

And then I looked at my arm and I went,

how am I gonna work on guitars?

And they go, you're not gonna have to worry

about that for a while.

All my ribs were broken and I had a punctured lung

and a pretty massive concussion and a broken arm

and a broken foot and some stick wounds

where some tree things come in and stuck me in the arms

and just I guess I ripped the floor out of the plane.

I don't know, my feet were kind of weird, I don't know.

- I woke up about a month later in the hospital

under severe medication and stuff

and in Mississippi I had a big hole in my head

and it was burns, acid burns.

I guess those hillbillies out there

thought I wasn't gonna make it, I was brain dead.

I was brain dead before the plane crashed.

- And I remember

Joe came and ran into my room hysterical

telling me who had not made it

and I think I passed out while she was there.

I just wasn't ready to hear that.

- Mm, one day I just said well nobody

would hurt any worse than me.

And they said well, yeah

and I said well, who?

And they said well, Dead died and then Cassie

and then Steve and then Ronnie and I went

it was like somebody punched you, it's over.

- I only started remembering things

when they got me to Jacksonville,

started doing the plastic surgery and stuff.

I was coming down off of the,

whatever narcotic they had me on

because I started hallucinating

because I was coming down off of it

and then after that I could start,

I remembered some things.

I was asking about him.

And said he's in the hospital.

I was asking about Allen or whatever, you know,

he's in Huntsville.

He's home, he's out of the hospital, he's home.

And I said where's Ronnie.

He's home, he seemed to get out.

So get out of the hospital and my girlfriend,

Karen Gray at the time,

I think it was just me and her.

She was taking me to Ronnie's house,

we were going the see Ronnie.

And so go ahead and park out there,

I'm expecting to go to his house,

she pulls into the cemetery.

And I said man, what are we going here for?

She said, you're coming to visit Ronnie,

he's right over there.

That was rough.

I didn't know he was dead at the time

and he was in a temporary mausoleum.

Temporary because Judy had ordered him

a big, fancy mausoleum, it wasn't there yet.

And he didn't have no name on it,

it was just black.

And it took me a while.

40 years actually.

I couldn't believe it.

And why nobody told me,

she said because they didn't want to upset you

in the hospital by letting you know it.

It's tough to find out like that,

you don't wanna find out your fishing buddy

is dead and gone.

It's still a shock after all these years

but that's how I found out.

- It just tore him up.

It really did.

I see how sad he is.

They've always been real close.

He's still real close to him

and I could still see the sadness in him.

He still has nightmares of that crash.

- The last thing I remember was slapping Ronnie in the face

and then hearing it smash the trees.

And what's good about that is my voice

was the last voice he heard.

I think Ronnie's mistake was I'm 100% sure,

I wake him up from a fog telling him the plane crashes,

he's not knowing the plane's crashing

and so I'm sure he unsnapped his belt

because for him to be put in that position

where he was at when he passed away at,

he wasn't in the seat.

When the plane hit and crushed so hard

with that 15 tons of force,

it twisted the couch that they were on up

and Ronnie was jettisoned on top of that table.

He laid underneath everybody.

And he actually asphyxiated,

he was knocked unconscious and never breathed again.

- We had actually been on a separate policy

as the Honkettes.

I didn't even have insurance.

We were being moved over to the band policies

and things were being changed,

being made more a permanent part.

- Management had not paid my premium on the Honkettes policy

so it had expired and I had a 90 day grace period

with the band policy.

So I had no insurance,

I was told that I would be part of a class action suit

against the management and then I was told

it was conflict of interest, see ya.

So as it all turned out I was even short

on my social security.

I had two quarters that never got turned in

and we couldn't get any cooperation

to even straighten that out.

After the crash, bye bye.

And it's been like that ever since.

- After the crash we just kind of all separated

'cause it was over and I went up to Ohio

to where my parents lived and recuperated there

and I started getting phone calls like

God, I still had a broken arm

and Cheap Trick called me

and wanted me to be their guitar tech

and I'm going I'm still in shock!

For a long time I was.

And I'm like well, how many guitars do they have

and the guy goes 28 and I went no thank you, you know.

So then they called me and wanted to know

this was in February, the crash was October.

By February I'm living in New York City

and I'm Foreigner's guitar tech for Double Vision.

And then the year after that I was guitar tech for Journey

for their world tour and I was still in shock.

I was really just doing stuff on memory,

as an alcoholic, I was a drug addict.

When your body goes through that much trauma,

I went through a lot of stuff, alcohol.

- I don't regret not being able to be there.

Gary came to me after the crash.

I was still going through physical therapy,

still wearing a brace part time.

There was no way I could go back to work

and I've never really been able to work.

I went out with Molly Hatchet just a little bit,

did a few big shoes with them

but I just couldn't stay healthy.

I haven't been able to stay healthy since the crash.

- You live from your mistakes and go on

but you can't look back.

But the main thing would be,

I'm the kind of person that thinks stick with it

because I don't like to make mistakes,

I don't like to do things wrong

and seems like everything I've ever dones has been wrong.

It's the Army, forget the Army

and my marriage to my wife and my daughters.

There's a divorce in 77,

I whish that would've never happened.

But Ronnie's loss, the loss of Ronnie.

I will always hold me that against me until the day I die

because I should've stopped that plane

but I'm also, I can give orders or I can take orders

and he was the pilot of the plane.

He was responsible, he was the man

that made the last decision, I know that.

That's the last thing he ever heard.

Him and his copilot.

Don't you wish you was on the tarmac like I asked you to do.

Three seconds later they were dead.

- At the end of my thing with journey in 79,

I called Gary and he goes

hey, we're putting another band back together,

you gonna come and be a part of it?

And I go yeah, I'm on my way

so I went down there and that's when they started

the Rossington Collins band

and then that lasted three years, I think,

and then Allen and Gary had a little misunderstanding

and Gary took off for Wyoming and Allen

started the Allen Collins Band.

And I was pretty much the key guy for that one,

me and Mike Sparks kind of ran that kind of thing.

And I went along with Sparks and Collins

we had an office over on Jacobs

where we had the old rehearsal place

and Allen was pretty out of it,

he was really bad on drugs and alcohol and stuff

so it didn't last long.

- You can't be prepared too young.

Watch what you sign and make sure

you take care of your business.

I don't think it was personal.

I got told it's not personal, it's business

but just the same a lot of things got shut out

and we haven't really been treated well since the crash

and I think that was more hurtful than anything else.

It was the fact that you thought people were your friends

that weren't.

That people that had been together

and gone through something like that together

couldn't pull it together to be right to everybody

and treat each other like friends

when you thought they were

until the old mighty dollar pops up

and then you're not.

Things that weren't done that

Ronnie would not have put up with had he known.

But that's life.

- I'm 66, and I just kind of grew up

here in the last year maybe.

And I said boy, you're getting old

and I come to the rationalization,

no you are old and you've been old.

All your friends are dying or I'm pretty healthy

I don't take any prescription medication,

and I quit drinking and before it effected me.

I'm just lucky I got good genes, you know,

because I really used this body up, man.

Seriously.

I drank enough whiskey to float a battle ship around.

- And I'm having trouble sleeping and everything.

And I'd be up in the morning or whatever,

I couldn't sleep, been up all night.

I'd hear this.

It irritate me,

I was trying to sleep and I was really irritated.

I kept hearing it.

I got up went around, looked everywhere,

I thought it might be the refrigerator one time

or it might be the air conditioner,

it might be something else.

I kept.

One morning I was.

I'm fixing to throw something out here

and I happened to look out the window

and there was an air conditioner there

and a mockingbird looked right at me

and that mockingbird was pecking on that window

and I walked up there and I looked right in between.

Is that you?

I says,

I bet it's you.

I'm alright and flew off.

Never came back.

As long as I stayed there that bird never came back.

- Wow, gosh it's been so long.

People ask me if it's hard to talk about

but it's been 40 years

so it's really not hard to talk about anymore.

It's just kind of good to see these guys alive.

There's not many of us left.

I was telling them about when we played cards

and you never drank or smoked no pot or nothing

when we would be playing cards

and I'd be smoking pot, we'd all be smoking pot

and you would get a contact high.

He'd start cussing at us, damn potheads,

I can't even think!

He'd have to get up and leave the table.

- It broke my attention because the pot smoke

would be like thunder clouds and what'd you say,

if it's not worth remembering it's not worth writing down

or something like that, didn't he say that?

- He said it, yeah.

It was something like if it's not good enough to remember

it's not worth remembering, I don't know,

something like that.

- If it's not good enough to remember.

Something, yeah. - I remember that one though.

- He always had all the parts in his head.

- He could write, I mean, you give him a topic,

I think he could write about anything.

He'd just think about something real simple

and just write about it.

Just give him a topic, that's kind of hard to do.

- Well he considered himself a storyteller.

He never thought of himself first as a singer,

but a storyteller, a communicator.

- He fed off of people, what they said,

the truck driver that was always going,

little Jim said, you got that shit right.

And say you got that right,

that's where that song come from.

- Minnesota truck driver. - Yeah.