Friday was the 40th anniversary of the plane crash that killed three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. To remember the occasion, the band posted the following: "40 years later, we remember with love our free birds -- [assistant road manager] Dean Kilpatrick, [singer] Ronnie Van Zant, [backup singer] Cassie Gaines and [her brother and guitarist] Steve Gaines. Fiercely gifted, fiercely loved and fiercely missed, we carry these incredibly special people in our hearts and we will continue to strive to celebrate their brilliant lives and legacies for the rest of ours."
And Johnny Van Zant, the band's current singer, says, "For the rest of my life, I will forever think that it's the coolest thing in the world that my brother, a simple guy from the west side of Jacksonville, hit [original drummer] Bob Burns in the head with a baseball and that started Lynyrd Skynyrd. I miss him every day, and I'm so blessed to be able to continue what he started in the band he loved."
The band was en route from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a show the next night when the chartered Convair CV-300 -- previously used by Aerosmith-- encountered a faulty engine. The pilots were diverted to the McComb-Pike County Airport, but ran out of fuel when they attempted an emergency landing before crashing in a heavily wooded area five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Both pilots were also killed.