’77 Flashback: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Street Survivors

Over a dozen years, Lynyrd Skynyrd evolved from a high school band in Jacksonville, Florida to the top dogs of Southern rock. By 1977, they’d released four studio albums, including the multiplatinum Second Helping and Nuthin’ Fancy, and the live classic One More from the Road, which made their epic rendition of “Freebird” an FM radio staple and eventual rock-culture punchline.

Enjoying more chart success than the Allman Brothers, with the Top 40 hits “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Saturday Night Special,” and “Freebird,” Lynyrd Skynyrd even scored twice with the latter: as a studio track in ’73, and as the famed ’76 in-concert performance.

But on October 20, 1977, it all came literally crashing down. On a flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the band’s chartered Convair 240 aircraft began having troubles. Pilots attempted an emergency landing, but the plane fell short of the airstrip, into a forest in McComb, Mississippi. Frontman and songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, singer Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and the pilots were killed. Guitarists Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, drummer Artimus Pyle, and bassist Leon Wilkeson survived the crash. National Transportation Safety Board inspectors concluded the plane had ....................................

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