This day in history: American folk-rock singer-songwriter Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash on this day in 1973.
Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles, including "Time in a Bottle", "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown".
On the night of Thursday, September 20, 1973, during Croce's Life and Times tour and the day before his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce and five others were killed when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree during takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Croce was 30 years old. Others killed in the crash were pilot Robert N. Elliott, Croce's bandmate Maury Muehleisen, comedian George Stevens, manager and booking agent Kenneth D. Cortese, and road manager Dennis Rast. An hour before the crash, Croce had completed a concert at Northwestern State University's Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches; he was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) named the probable cause as the pilot's failure to see the obstruction due to physical impairment and because fog reduced his vision. The 57-year-old Elliott suffered from severe coronary artery disease and had run three miles to the airport from a motel. He had an ATP certificate, 14,290 hours total flight time, and 2,190 hours in the Beech 18 type airplane. A later investigation placed the sole blame on pilot error because of his downwind takeoff into a "black hole" of severe darkness, limiting his use of visual references.
Croce was buried at Haym Salomon Memorial Park in Frazer, Pennsylvania.
Jim Croce is one of many musicians who have died in plane crashes, including Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Richie Valens, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Patsy Cline, Glenn Miller, Jim Reeves, several members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Otis Redding, Randy Rhoads, Ricky Nelson, John Denver, and Aaliyah.
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