Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Adam Goldstein, known as celebrity DJ AM, were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four Southern Californians, including two members of Barker’s entourage, authorities said.
The pilot, Sarah Lemmon of Anaheim Hills, and copilot, James Bland of Carlsbad, were killed. Barker’s personal assistant Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City and his bodyguard Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles, also were among the dead, according to the Lexington County coroner.
The Learjet, which was en route to Van Nuys, was taking off shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers saw sparks. In what officials described as a “high-speed overrun” the jet veered off the end of the runway, through a grassy area, a perimeter fence and across a road, slammed into a berm and became engulfed in a “significant fire,” said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson.
Barker and Goldstein were in critical but stable condition this afternoon at Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of the crash site in Columbia, S.C., said hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits. She declined to comment on their injuries.
“It’s absolutely terrible and tragic,” Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said.
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.
The plane is owned by Global Exec Aviation, a Long Beach-based charter company, and was certified to operate last year, an NTSB official said.
A 10-member investigative team from the NTSB, which expects to be onsite for up to a week, secured and removed the cockpit voice recorder and sent it to a lab in Washington, D.C., for evaluation. Because of the ferocity of the fire following the crash, investigators could not say whether the data were damaged, but will announce what the quality of the recording was as soon as it is known.
Air traffic controllers did not know if the Learjet had become airborne before the crash, which occurred in clear weather with light winds. The pilots had filed a flight plan from Columbia to Van Nuys with no fuel stops scheduled. As part of the investigation, the NTSB will be looking at the jet’s maintenance records, the pilots’ medical history and training and their activities going back to 72 hours before the crash.
According to music industry sources, Charles “Che” Still was a longtime friend of Barker’s and sometimes worked as a bodyguard when the star drummer performed in small shows. Barker and Goldstein had performed together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night.
Baker, nicknamed “Little Chris,” worked as a personal assistant to Barker and had appeared sometimes on MTV’s “Meet the Barkers” the domestic-life reality show that aired in 2005 and 2006.
Michael Creger, a friend of Still, said the bodyguard’s family was reeling from the news. They were upset, too, that early media reports of the accident focused on the injured Barker instead of the dead passengers. Still’s family had thought the group in South Carolina would be returning home on a commercial flight, but travel plans apparently had changed.
The athletic Still was “a gentle giant” who aspired to be a professional athlete and had been working part time for Barker, Creger said. He was a “huge music fan” who, with his tattoos and stature, was an imposing figure to strangers. His friends, however, knew him as “a loving guy, the kind of guy would do anything for anybody,” Creger said.
Mark Shafer, spokesman for the charter company, declined to comment on the crash or the pilots. He said the company is sending a management team to South Carolina to cooperate with the FAA and the NTSB.
The firm’s website states that it caters to corporate clientele, including “many VIPS in the entertainment industry.”
Relatives of co-pilot James Bland, 52, gathered today at the home of his younger sister, Laura Bland, in Redondo Beach.
“He always said this could happen,” Laura Bland said in a phone interview. “He lost a couple of friends in different accidents, but of anybody we knew, he was just so conscientious that we didn’t expect this at all.”
Laura Bland said her brother started his piloting career at age 17, moving to Tulsa, Okla., to attend the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology.
“When he was a little kid, my grandfather would take him to the Orange County airport and watch the planes take off, and he’d say, ‘I’m going to do that someday!’ ” she said. “But he took piloting very seriously, I mean this was someone who was tremendously responsible and wouldn’t pay a bill even one day late.”
James Bland went on to work for police departments in Laguna Beach and Santa Ana, and then spent 20 years working as a helicopter pilot for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Coronado, Calif. For the last two years, he had worked as a pilot for various private jet companies based out of Southern California.
A family man, Bland shared his Carlsbad home with his wife Anne, 46, and 16-year-old daughter, Erin. The eldest of three children, he assumed a patriarchal role after his father died at 59. “He was like a father to me,” Laura said. “If there was ever an emergency in the family, he always was the first to try to fix it.”
The flight took off several hours after Barker and Goldstein’s show Friday, which included performances by former Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Ferrell and singer Gavin DeGraw. About 10,000 people crowded into the streets of Five Points, the neighborhood near the University of South Carolina, Coble said.
Barker is one of the more famous faces to rise up in the Southern California pop-punk scene and, unlike many drummers who are fairly anonymous figures at the rear of the stage, he parlayed his popularity into television roles, advertising appearances and varied business ventures.
The 33-year-old Fontana native came to fame as the drummer in the platinum-selling San Diego County band Blink-182, one of the top U.S. bands at the beginning of this decade.
After Blink broke up, Barker went on to play with other rock bands such as +44, the Transplants and Box Car Racer, but he also established himself a musical chameleon, working with hip-hop acts such as Busta Rhymes, the Game, the Black Eyed Peas and the Oscar-winning group Three 6 Mafia.
Barker and then-wife Shanna Moakler, a former Miss USA, were in front of the cameras along with their three children for “Meet the Barkers.” The rock star also appeared in the 1999 hit film “American Pie,” and his television appearances include “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “The Simpsons,” “MAD TV” and “MTV Cribs.”
The tattoo-covered Barker, who often pops up in the gossip pages for his liaisons with celebritiessuch as Paris Hilton, was also the subject of a popular 2006 Boost Mobile television commercial that has been viewed more than 800,000 times on YouTube.
Nine years ago, he launched a clothing line called Famous Stars and Straps, which opened a flagship store called the Fast Life near the intersection of Third Street and Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles. Some fans were stopping by Saturday to ask about the condition of the star, his associates and the crew.
Barker performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards with Goldstein, who goes by the stage moniker DJ AM. Goldstein was formerly in the band “Crazy Town” but today he may be best known for his romances — he was engaged for a time to “The Simple Life” star Nicole Richie and also had relationships with singer Mandy Moore and Canadian model Jessica Stam.
He is also the owner of the popular Hollywood nightclub LAX, which has been a major spot in the celebrity circuit since its opening in 2005.
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