On October 20th, 1977, while promoting their latest album, American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd was en route to the fifth stop of a 45-day tour titled ‘Tour of the Survivors.’ However, that fifth date would never be played, and the tour’s title would become dreadfully prescient.

On that day, as they boarded a rickety 30-year-old Convair 240 in Greenville, South Carolina, the band and their entourage had already agreed to invest in an upgrade – a Learjet – for the next trip. Drummer Artimus Pyle is quoted by Rolling Stone as saying, “We were flying in a plane that looked like it belonged to the [Beverly Hillbillies] Clampett family.”

The flight departed Greenville Downtown Airport for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shortly after 4pm. By 7pm that evening, two crew members and four of the passengers would be dead, including lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant and sibling band members Steve and Cassie Gaines.

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