Jim Reeves (1964) Otis Redding (1967)

Country singer Jim Reeves died in a plane he was piloting. Leaving Arkansas with his manager as a passenger, he ran into bad weather, became disoriented, and the plane crashed going at high speeds. It took days to finally locate the wreckage.

At just 26 years old, one of the greatest soul singers ever to have lived died in a plane crash. Redding left Cleveland to land in Madison, Wisconsin, when bad weather came into play. The airplane fell, crashing into Lake Monona. Today, the cause of the crash remains unclear, though some speculate there were engine troubles. Only one survived, 20-year-old Ben Cauley. Four months after the crash, Redding’s “(Sittin’ on)

The Dock of the Bay” hit No. 1.

Jim Croce (1973)

Sadly for Croce, his career was just beginning to hit big highs when he died at just 30 years old in a crash. Road-weary, Croce was itching to get to his next and last tour stop in Texas. But upon the plane taking off it almost immediately struck a pecan tree. All six people onboard died immediately and the subsequent investigation blamed the pilot, who had arrived at the airport initially after walking nearly three miles because he couldn’t get a cab.

Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)

Three days after releasing its fifth album, Street Survivors, a plane out of South Carolina, heading for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, took members of this legendary southern rock band. The investigation afterward saw that the plane had run out of fuel with the pilots not checking the fuel gauges ahead of time. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines were all killed in the wreckage. Strangely and happily, 20 people