4 killed in plane crash; Ex-Blink 182 drummer and DJ AM critically injuredAssociated Press
Article Launched: 09/20/2008 07:55:46 AM PDT
South Carolina officials say four California residents died in the fiery Learjet crash that also critically injured former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM.
The Lexington County coroner said Saturday that pilot Sarah Lemmon of Anaheim Hills and co-pilot James Bland of Carlsbad died. Also killed were passengers Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles.
Authorities say the plane carrying six people was departing shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. The plane headed for Van Nuys, Calif., went off a runway, through a fence and crashed on a nearby road.
Barker and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were in critical condition at a burn center in Augusta, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of Columbia, hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits said.
At the crash site Saturday, the air was still heavy with the odor of jet fuel. A trail of black soot led off a runway, across a five-lane road next to the airport and up an embankment. The nose of the aircraft was gone and the roof was missing from two-thirds of the charred plane.
Barker and Goldstein had performed together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night.
"It's absolutely terrible and tragic," Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said.
The show, which included performances by former Jane's Addiction singer Perry Ferrell and singer Gavin DeGraw, drew 10,000 people into the streets of Five Points, the neighborhood near the University of South Carolina, Coble said.
Neither Ferrell nor DeGraw were in the plane, their representatives told AP on Saturday.
One concertgoer said TRVSDJ-AM's performance was unique and different.
"It was literally one of the best shows I've ever scene," said Brett Flashnick, a freelance photographer who works for The Associated Press and attended the concert for a local newspaper.
Barker, 32, was one of the more colorful members of the multiplatinum-selling punk rock band Blink-182, whose biggest album was 1999's CD "Enema of the State," which sold more than five million copies in the United States alone.
After Blink-182 disbanded in 2005, Barker went on to form the rock band (+44) — pronounced "plus forty-four." He also starred in the MTV reality series "Meet the Barkers" with former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, to whom he was married at the time. The show documented the former couple's lavish wedding and life. Their later split, reconcilation and subsqequent break-up made them tabloid favorites.
Goldstein is a popular DJ for hire who at one time was engaged to Nicole Richie.
Barker and Goldstein performed as part of the house band at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month.
