Randy Rhoads
On This Date, March 19th in 1982: Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist Randy Rhoads died in a plane crash in Leesburg, FL when the plane crashed into Osbourne’s tour bus. The pilot Andrew Aycock – who caused the crash by trying to “buzz” the top of the bus as a prank – and hairdresser Rachel Youngblood were also killed. Rhoads was 25 years old.
Free guitarist Paul Kossoff also died on this day in 1976, also at age 25, after suffering a drug-related heart attack while on a flight to Los Angeles. RIP to two great young talents lost way too soon.
Paul Kossoff
It’s sad enough when people die, but when they die under such tragic circumstances it’s awful. Particularly the stupidity of that pilot of the plane with Randy — you don’t horse around while piloting a plane…Good God.
Is that Aycock in the picture.I mean a pit stop at a millionaire house just to visit real quick and then be on their way because they were on tour. What are the chances for their to be planes there and the keys in them. For Aycock to jump in them and convince Rhoads and the hairdresser to join was really crazy. I mean he didn’t know if they were in running condition, he just assumed that they were flight ready.What if they were having trouble in their performance. Aycock didn’t know what condition they were in they were there just making a pit stop for some down time between Ozzy’s tour dates. Flying is scary if something mechanical goes wrong you are way up and for a plane to fail is immediate descent. All those factors lined up I mean what are the chances. Rhoads was in the prime of his life. It’s a total shocker that this incident occurred. I mean they were just going to be there for a small amount of time because they were in the middle of tour dates. Unbelievable