Chords for Lynyrd Skynrd Crash Report from 1977 - Rare Survivor & Eyewitness Interviews
Tempo:
113.4 bpm
Chords used:
Bb
Bbm
Eb
C
G
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
Thursday, October 20th, a twin-engine Convair 240 with the name Leonard Skinner painted on the side is 580 miles out of Greenville, South Carolina, bound for Baton [Bbm] Rouge.
24 passengers aboard are heading for a concert date Friday night.
They're relaxing.
Some are playing poker.
[C] Most musicians at a certain point will sit down and they'll say, you know, is our time coming?
I mean, when you fly two and 300 airplanes a year, you always feel that there's a point when it may catch up with you.
It is shortly before six [G] o'clock Central Daylight Time.
The pilot, Walter McCreary of Dallas, Texas, radios Houston Air Traffic Control.
He's low on fuel and can't make Baton Rouge 80 miles away.
Instead, he'll try for a small airport at nearby Macomb, Mississippi.
We found out 10 minutes from the Baton Rouge [N] airport that we ran out of gas.
And I just heard the pilot go, oh, my God.
Pilot McCreary turns his plane to the left and starts back toward Macomb.
His altimeter [B] reads 2000 feet.
The time is just past six o'clock.
One of the engines on the Convair quits, probably starved for fuel.
[Bb] Well, half an hour out, sitting in our backyard and we heard this plane come over.
It sounded like it was running on one engine.
And then all of a sudden I heard that engine go out.
[Eb] By now, Pilot McCreary is desperately looking for a spot for an emergency landing.
He follows a pipeline route.
For reasons unknown, McCreary changes his mind and heads for a better spot, a pasture off to his left.
The Convair 240 is in a glide 100 yards short of the pasture.
The wings are clipping treetops.
The plane stalls and [N] goes down.
The Leonard Skinner Band was riding high.
They had just released a new album, Street Survivors, and set out on a five-month cross-country tour to promote it.
They were on their way to a concert at Louisiana State University when disaster happened.
We got in this pile down, trying to lose altitude, try to close to the land.
And I thought he was going to make this field and to let us land on the side of the resin.
Got a clip in the palm trees.
And at that point I grabbed a blanket and closed my eyes.
Put the blanket over my face.
All I [Bb] saw was treetops.
I looked out my window.
I was in the middle of the airplane on the right wing.
I tried to get as close to the back of the airplane as possible.
I got in the middle of the airplane on the right wing and all I saw was treetops.
And at first it wasn't so bad, but then when it hit [Bbm] the middle of the trees, it was horrible.
It was an experience nobody wants to ever experience.
Never.
[N] Anastasia, Drummer Artemis Pyle, and another passenger managed to climb through a window and go for help.
Neighbors who'd heard the crash were among the first rescue workers to arrive.
We were at the site.
And at that time there was nobody on the site.
Well, we started getting them out then, getting the ones that were hurt out, and everybody was out too.
Under the glare of helicopter floodlights, the 23 victims were pulled one by one from the wreckage, placed on stretchers, and carried 100 yards through dense woods and across a creek to waiting ambulances.
They were rushed to Southwest Mississippi Medical Center in Macomb.
It took more than an hour to get all the victims to the hospital.
Six are dead.
Eleven are admitted for treatment after receiving emergency care.
Eight are flown to two other hospitals in Jackson, Mississippi.
One, Drummer Pyle, was treated [Bbm] and released.
By all accounts, the hospital staff handled the disaster well.
The head doctor credited countless rehearsals, which he said prepared his people for the real thing.
Before dawn the next morning, the hospital had compiled a list of 26 names and notified next of kin.
The dead, the pilot and co-pilot, bandleader Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister, singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick of Jacksonville.
The 20 survivors included singer Leslie Hawkins, bass guitarist Leon Wilkison, guitarist Alan Collins, and guitarist Gary Rossington.
Wilkison and Rossington suffered the most severe injuries.
He has two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken pelvis, a punctured stomach, and a punctured liver.
And he's going to be in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi for about another month.
But [Bb] Leon's got tremendous amounts of internal injuries, and Alan's got a broken, not a broken neck, but a cracked neck.
Every airplane crash is methodically investigated by specialists from the National Transportation Safety Board.
They look at wreckage as pieces of a puzzle, which when put together will tell them why a plane crashed.
The search at the scene even extends to the passenger's luggage.
The board looks into about 4,500 mishaps a year.
To the field investigators, wreckage is routine business.
But for the rest of us who saw the remains of Leonard Skinner's Convair 240, the sight is unforgettable.
You can't even realize, seeing one of these things on television, exactly what a crash of this magnitude looks like.
Up there sitting against the tree is a piece of an airplane wing, torn away from the rest of the airplane.
Lying down there at the base of the tree is the engine.
And that back there, that twisted metal back there, is the fuselage of the plane, which sort of was turned around a corner.
It was just terrible.
People were hollering, screaming.
I've never witnessed anything before in my lifetime.
It was just a disaster to me.
I've never seen anything like it.
[N] And it just hit me hard.
Nine days have passed since the crash, and the investigation has really only just begun.
Authorities still believe the plane ran out of gas.
But why?
Didn't they put enough gas in the tanks, or was there a leak?
We won't know the answers to those questions for at [Bb] least a month.
Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkerson are still hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
They could stay there anywhere from two more weeks to a month.
Leslie Hawkins has had extensive plastic surgery on her face.
Alan Collins is moving around, despite a huge plaster cast for his cracked neck.
Artemis Pyle is not in the hospital, but friends say he is still not recovered from the shock.
[F] What about [Eb] Leonard Skinner?
Will there [Bb] be a Leonard Skinner after this?
24 passengers aboard are heading for a concert date Friday night.
They're relaxing.
Some are playing poker.
[C] Most musicians at a certain point will sit down and they'll say, you know, is our time coming?
I mean, when you fly two and 300 airplanes a year, you always feel that there's a point when it may catch up with you.
It is shortly before six [G] o'clock Central Daylight Time.
The pilot, Walter McCreary of Dallas, Texas, radios Houston Air Traffic Control.
He's low on fuel and can't make Baton Rouge 80 miles away.
Instead, he'll try for a small airport at nearby Macomb, Mississippi.
We found out 10 minutes from the Baton Rouge [N] airport that we ran out of gas.
And I just heard the pilot go, oh, my God.
Pilot McCreary turns his plane to the left and starts back toward Macomb.
His altimeter [B] reads 2000 feet.
The time is just past six o'clock.
One of the engines on the Convair quits, probably starved for fuel.
[Bb] Well, half an hour out, sitting in our backyard and we heard this plane come over.
It sounded like it was running on one engine.
And then all of a sudden I heard that engine go out.
[Eb] By now, Pilot McCreary is desperately looking for a spot for an emergency landing.
He follows a pipeline route.
For reasons unknown, McCreary changes his mind and heads for a better spot, a pasture off to his left.
The Convair 240 is in a glide 100 yards short of the pasture.
The wings are clipping treetops.
The plane stalls and [N] goes down.
The Leonard Skinner Band was riding high.
They had just released a new album, Street Survivors, and set out on a five-month cross-country tour to promote it.
They were on their way to a concert at Louisiana State University when disaster happened.
We got in this pile down, trying to lose altitude, try to close to the land.
And I thought he was going to make this field and to let us land on the side of the resin.
Got a clip in the palm trees.
And at that point I grabbed a blanket and closed my eyes.
Put the blanket over my face.
All I [Bb] saw was treetops.
I looked out my window.
I was in the middle of the airplane on the right wing.
I tried to get as close to the back of the airplane as possible.
I got in the middle of the airplane on the right wing and all I saw was treetops.
And at first it wasn't so bad, but then when it hit [Bbm] the middle of the trees, it was horrible.
It was an experience nobody wants to ever experience.
Never.
[N] Anastasia, Drummer Artemis Pyle, and another passenger managed to climb through a window and go for help.
Neighbors who'd heard the crash were among the first rescue workers to arrive.
We were at the site.
And at that time there was nobody on the site.
Well, we started getting them out then, getting the ones that were hurt out, and everybody was out too.
Under the glare of helicopter floodlights, the 23 victims were pulled one by one from the wreckage, placed on stretchers, and carried 100 yards through dense woods and across a creek to waiting ambulances.
They were rushed to Southwest Mississippi Medical Center in Macomb.
It took more than an hour to get all the victims to the hospital.
Six are dead.
Eleven are admitted for treatment after receiving emergency care.
Eight are flown to two other hospitals in Jackson, Mississippi.
One, Drummer Pyle, was treated [Bbm] and released.
By all accounts, the hospital staff handled the disaster well.
The head doctor credited countless rehearsals, which he said prepared his people for the real thing.
Before dawn the next morning, the hospital had compiled a list of 26 names and notified next of kin.
The dead, the pilot and co-pilot, bandleader Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister, singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick of Jacksonville.
The 20 survivors included singer Leslie Hawkins, bass guitarist Leon Wilkison, guitarist Alan Collins, and guitarist Gary Rossington.
Wilkison and Rossington suffered the most severe injuries.
He has two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken pelvis, a punctured stomach, and a punctured liver.
And he's going to be in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi for about another month.
But [Bb] Leon's got tremendous amounts of internal injuries, and Alan's got a broken, not a broken neck, but a cracked neck.
Every airplane crash is methodically investigated by specialists from the National Transportation Safety Board.
They look at wreckage as pieces of a puzzle, which when put together will tell them why a plane crashed.
The search at the scene even extends to the passenger's luggage.
The board looks into about 4,500 mishaps a year.
To the field investigators, wreckage is routine business.
But for the rest of us who saw the remains of Leonard Skinner's Convair 240, the sight is unforgettable.
You can't even realize, seeing one of these things on television, exactly what a crash of this magnitude looks like.
Up there sitting against the tree is a piece of an airplane wing, torn away from the rest of the airplane.
Lying down there at the base of the tree is the engine.
And that back there, that twisted metal back there, is the fuselage of the plane, which sort of was turned around a corner.
It was just terrible.
People were hollering, screaming.
I've never witnessed anything before in my lifetime.
It was just a disaster to me.
I've never seen anything like it.
[N] And it just hit me hard.
Nine days have passed since the crash, and the investigation has really only just begun.
Authorities still believe the plane ran out of gas.
But why?
Didn't they put enough gas in the tanks, or was there a leak?
We won't know the answers to those questions for at [Bb] least a month.
Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkerson are still hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
They could stay there anywhere from two more weeks to a month.
Leslie Hawkins has had extensive plastic surgery on her face.
Alan Collins is moving around, despite a huge plaster cast for his cracked neck.
Artemis Pyle is not in the hospital, but friends say he is still not recovered from the shock.
[F] What about [Eb] Leonard Skinner?
Will there [Bb] be a Leonard Skinner after this?
Key:
Bb
Bbm
Eb
C
G
Bb
Bbm
Eb
Thursday, October 20th, a twin-engine Convair 240 with the name Leonard Skinner painted on the side is 580 miles out of Greenville, South Carolina, bound for Baton [Bbm] Rouge.
24 passengers aboard are heading for a concert date Friday night.
They're relaxing.
Some are playing poker.
[C] _ _ _ Most musicians at a certain point will sit down and they'll say, you know, is our time coming?
I mean, when you fly two and 300 airplanes a year, you always feel that there's a point when it may catch up with you. _
It is shortly before six [G] o'clock Central Daylight Time.
The pilot, Walter McCreary of Dallas, Texas, radios Houston Air Traffic Control.
He's low on fuel and can't make Baton Rouge 80 miles away.
Instead, he'll try for a small airport at nearby Macomb, Mississippi.
We found out _ 10 minutes from the Baton Rouge [N] airport that we ran out of gas.
And I just heard the pilot go, oh, my God.
_ _ Pilot McCreary turns his plane to the left and starts back toward Macomb.
His altimeter [B] reads 2000 feet.
The time is just past six o'clock.
One of the engines on the Convair quits, probably starved for fuel.
[Bb] Well, half an hour out, sitting in our backyard and we heard this plane come over.
It sounded like it was running on one engine.
And then all of a sudden I heard that engine go out.
[Eb] By now, Pilot McCreary is desperately looking for a spot for an emergency landing.
He follows a pipeline route.
For reasons unknown, McCreary changes his mind and heads for a better spot, a pasture off to his left.
The Convair 240 is in a glide 100 yards short of the pasture.
The wings are clipping treetops.
The plane stalls and [N] goes down.
_ _ _ The Leonard Skinner Band was riding high.
They had just released a new album, Street Survivors, and set out on a five-month cross-country tour to promote it.
They were on their way to a concert at Louisiana State University when disaster happened.
We got in this pile down, _ trying to lose altitude, try to close to the land. _
And I thought he was going to make this field and to let us land on the side of the resin.
Got a clip in the palm trees. _
And at that point I grabbed a blanket and closed my eyes.
Put the blanket over my face.
All I [Bb] saw was treetops.
I looked out my window.
I was in the middle of the airplane on the right wing.
I tried to get as close to the back of the airplane as possible.
I got in the middle of the airplane on the right wing and all I saw was treetops.
And at first it wasn't so bad, but then when it hit [Bbm] the middle of the trees, it was horrible.
It was an experience nobody wants to ever experience.
Never.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] Anastasia, Drummer Artemis Pyle, and another passenger managed to climb through a window and go for help.
Neighbors who'd heard the crash were among the first rescue workers to arrive.
_ We were at the site. _
And at that time there was nobody on the site.
Well, we started getting them out then, getting the ones that were hurt out, and everybody was out too. _
Under the glare of helicopter floodlights, the 23 victims were pulled one by one from the wreckage, placed on stretchers, and carried 100 yards through dense woods and across a creek to waiting ambulances.
They were rushed to Southwest Mississippi Medical Center in Macomb. _ _ _ _ _
It took more than an hour to get all the victims to the hospital.
Six are dead.
Eleven are admitted for treatment after receiving emergency care.
Eight are flown to two other hospitals in Jackson, Mississippi.
One, Drummer Pyle, was treated [Bbm] and released. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ By all accounts, the hospital staff handled the disaster well.
The head doctor credited countless rehearsals, which he said prepared his people for the real thing.
Before dawn the next morning, the hospital had compiled a list of 26 names and notified next of kin.
The dead, the pilot and co-pilot, _ bandleader Ronnie Van Zant, _ guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister, singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick of Jacksonville.
The 20 survivors included singer Leslie Hawkins, _ bass guitarist Leon Wilkison, _ _ guitarist Alan Collins, _ and guitarist Gary Rossington.
_ Wilkison and Rossington suffered the most severe injuries.
He has two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken pelvis, a punctured stomach, and a punctured liver. _
And he's going to be in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi for about another month. _ _
But _ [Bb] Leon's got tremendous amounts of internal injuries, and Alan's got a broken, not a broken neck, but a cracked neck. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Every airplane crash is methodically investigated by specialists from the National Transportation Safety Board.
They look at wreckage as pieces of a puzzle, which when put together will tell them why a plane crashed.
The search at the scene even extends to the passenger's luggage. _ _ _ _
The board looks into about 4,500 mishaps a year.
To the field investigators, wreckage is routine business.
But for the rest of us who saw the remains of Leonard Skinner's Convair 240, the sight is unforgettable.
_ You can't even realize, seeing one of these things on television, exactly what a crash of this magnitude looks like.
Up there sitting against the tree is a piece of an airplane wing, torn away from the rest of the airplane.
Lying down there at the base of the tree is the engine.
And that back there, that twisted metal back there, is the fuselage of the plane, which sort of was turned around a corner.
It was just terrible.
People were hollering, screaming. _
_ _ I've never witnessed anything before in my lifetime.
It was just a disaster to me.
I've never seen anything like it. _
[N] And it just hit me hard.
_ Nine days have passed since the crash, and the investigation has really only just begun.
Authorities still believe the plane ran out of gas.
But why?
Didn't they put enough gas in the tanks, or was there a leak?
We won't know the answers to those questions for at [Bb] least a month. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkerson are still hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
They could stay there anywhere from two more weeks to a month.
Leslie Hawkins has had extensive plastic surgery on her face.
Alan Collins is moving around, despite a huge plaster cast for his cracked neck.
Artemis Pyle is not in the hospital, but friends say he is still not recovered from the shock.
[F] What about [Eb] Leonard Skinner?
_ Will there [Bb] be a Leonard Skinner after this? _
24 passengers aboard are heading for a concert date Friday night.
They're relaxing.
Some are playing poker.
[C] _ _ _ Most musicians at a certain point will sit down and they'll say, you know, is our time coming?
I mean, when you fly two and 300 airplanes a year, you always feel that there's a point when it may catch up with you. _
It is shortly before six [G] o'clock Central Daylight Time.
The pilot, Walter McCreary of Dallas, Texas, radios Houston Air Traffic Control.
He's low on fuel and can't make Baton Rouge 80 miles away.
Instead, he'll try for a small airport at nearby Macomb, Mississippi.
We found out _ 10 minutes from the Baton Rouge [N] airport that we ran out of gas.
And I just heard the pilot go, oh, my God.
_ _ Pilot McCreary turns his plane to the left and starts back toward Macomb.
His altimeter [B] reads 2000 feet.
The time is just past six o'clock.
One of the engines on the Convair quits, probably starved for fuel.
[Bb] Well, half an hour out, sitting in our backyard and we heard this plane come over.
It sounded like it was running on one engine.
And then all of a sudden I heard that engine go out.
[Eb] By now, Pilot McCreary is desperately looking for a spot for an emergency landing.
He follows a pipeline route.
For reasons unknown, McCreary changes his mind and heads for a better spot, a pasture off to his left.
The Convair 240 is in a glide 100 yards short of the pasture.
The wings are clipping treetops.
The plane stalls and [N] goes down.
_ _ _ The Leonard Skinner Band was riding high.
They had just released a new album, Street Survivors, and set out on a five-month cross-country tour to promote it.
They were on their way to a concert at Louisiana State University when disaster happened.
We got in this pile down, _ trying to lose altitude, try to close to the land. _
And I thought he was going to make this field and to let us land on the side of the resin.
Got a clip in the palm trees. _
And at that point I grabbed a blanket and closed my eyes.
Put the blanket over my face.
All I [Bb] saw was treetops.
I looked out my window.
I was in the middle of the airplane on the right wing.
I tried to get as close to the back of the airplane as possible.
I got in the middle of the airplane on the right wing and all I saw was treetops.
And at first it wasn't so bad, but then when it hit [Bbm] the middle of the trees, it was horrible.
It was an experience nobody wants to ever experience.
Never.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] Anastasia, Drummer Artemis Pyle, and another passenger managed to climb through a window and go for help.
Neighbors who'd heard the crash were among the first rescue workers to arrive.
_ We were at the site. _
And at that time there was nobody on the site.
Well, we started getting them out then, getting the ones that were hurt out, and everybody was out too. _
Under the glare of helicopter floodlights, the 23 victims were pulled one by one from the wreckage, placed on stretchers, and carried 100 yards through dense woods and across a creek to waiting ambulances.
They were rushed to Southwest Mississippi Medical Center in Macomb. _ _ _ _ _
It took more than an hour to get all the victims to the hospital.
Six are dead.
Eleven are admitted for treatment after receiving emergency care.
Eight are flown to two other hospitals in Jackson, Mississippi.
One, Drummer Pyle, was treated [Bbm] and released. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ By all accounts, the hospital staff handled the disaster well.
The head doctor credited countless rehearsals, which he said prepared his people for the real thing.
Before dawn the next morning, the hospital had compiled a list of 26 names and notified next of kin.
The dead, the pilot and co-pilot, _ bandleader Ronnie Van Zant, _ guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister, singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick of Jacksonville.
The 20 survivors included singer Leslie Hawkins, _ bass guitarist Leon Wilkison, _ _ guitarist Alan Collins, _ and guitarist Gary Rossington.
_ Wilkison and Rossington suffered the most severe injuries.
He has two broken arms, a broken leg, a broken pelvis, a punctured stomach, and a punctured liver. _
And he's going to be in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi for about another month. _ _
But _ [Bb] Leon's got tremendous amounts of internal injuries, and Alan's got a broken, not a broken neck, but a cracked neck. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Every airplane crash is methodically investigated by specialists from the National Transportation Safety Board.
They look at wreckage as pieces of a puzzle, which when put together will tell them why a plane crashed.
The search at the scene even extends to the passenger's luggage. _ _ _ _
The board looks into about 4,500 mishaps a year.
To the field investigators, wreckage is routine business.
But for the rest of us who saw the remains of Leonard Skinner's Convair 240, the sight is unforgettable.
_ You can't even realize, seeing one of these things on television, exactly what a crash of this magnitude looks like.
Up there sitting against the tree is a piece of an airplane wing, torn away from the rest of the airplane.
Lying down there at the base of the tree is the engine.
And that back there, that twisted metal back there, is the fuselage of the plane, which sort of was turned around a corner.
It was just terrible.
People were hollering, screaming. _
_ _ I've never witnessed anything before in my lifetime.
It was just a disaster to me.
I've never seen anything like it. _
[N] And it just hit me hard.
_ Nine days have passed since the crash, and the investigation has really only just begun.
Authorities still believe the plane ran out of gas.
But why?
Didn't they put enough gas in the tanks, or was there a leak?
We won't know the answers to those questions for at [Bb] least a month. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkerson are still hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
They could stay there anywhere from two more weeks to a month.
Leslie Hawkins has had extensive plastic surgery on her face.
Alan Collins is moving around, despite a huge plaster cast for his cracked neck.
Artemis Pyle is not in the hospital, but friends say he is still not recovered from the shock.
[F] What about [Eb] Leonard Skinner?
_ Will there [Bb] be a Leonard Skinner after this? _