There are many obstacles in a life of a musician, and the most painful of it is an untimely death. Below is the list of musicians who died in plane crash.
• Ritchie Valens – this American singer-songwriter was a Chicano rock music pioneer. After a 1959 performance in Iowa, Valens flew out of Mason City in a chartered plane with other known musicians. Their plane crashed shortly after a snow storm takeoff and killed everyone including the pilot. Ritchie was only seventeen.
• Otis Redding – he is an American singer-songwriter and a big artist of rhythm in blues. In 1967, Redding’s plane crashed in a bad weather while flying between Madison and Nashville. Otis and 4 of his Bar-Kays band members were killed. He was 26 years old.
• Aaliyah – the young American recording artist was only 22 when their chartered plane crashed in The Bahamas after completed filming a music video. Aaliyah suffered from severe shock, burns, and blow to the head which immediately killed the young singer.
• Jim Croce – he was a 30-year-old singer-songwriter known for his chart-topping hits “Time in a Bottle” and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". In 1973, while on tour, Croce was killed along with four others when his chartered plane crashed in Louisiana. Jim Croce was buried in Pennsylvania.
• Ricky Nelson – he is known for a number of hits including "Poor Little Fool", as well as starring in a family TV series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. In 1985, Nelson and his band boarded a private plane for New Year’s Eve. The plane crash landed and killed seven out of the nine occupants, including Ricky Nelson.
They are just some of the many greats who went before us. But as we said, music is immortal and so are the artists who made music that touched our lives.