Drummer has burns surgery after plane crash
Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has had surgery burns after a plane crash that killed four people, including two close friends, his spokesman said today.
But Barker was trying to stay positive.
“If you make it out of a crash of that magnitude, somebody’s looking out for you,” said Bill Nosal, Barker’s friend and spokesman for Famous Stars and Straps, a Los Angeles-based clothing and accessory line created by the musician. “He’s trying to stay upbeat.”
Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, survived the Learjet crash last Friday night at the main airport in Columbia, South Carolina, with second- and third-degree burns.
Their doctor at a Georgia burns hospital said he expected them to fully recover.
Pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, and co-pilot James Bland, 52, died of smoke inhalation and burns within minutes of the crash into an embankment about a quarter of a mile from the end of the runway.
A South Carolina coroner said Chris Baker, 29, and Charles Still, 25, close friends of the musicians, died on impact.
Baker was an assistant to Barker and “was like extended family,” Nosal said. Still was working as a security guard for the musician, who Nosal said did not always travel with one. They were on a weekend trip to perform for about 10,000 people in a neighbourhood near the University of South Carolina.
Barker, 32, was one of the more colourful members of the multi-platinum-selling punk rock band Blink-182, whose biggest album was 1999’s Enema of the State.
After Blink-182 disbanded in 2005, Barker went on to form the rock band (+44).
The National Transportation Safety Board has not said what caused the crash but did say a cockpit voice recorder revealed that crew members thought a tyre blew and tried to abort the takeoff but could not stop the plane.
