September 20: On This Day in World History … briefly
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
1973: Singer Jim Croce dies at the age of 30
On September 20, 1973, during Croce’s ‘Life and Times’ tour and the day before his ABC single ‘I Got a Name’ was released, Croce and five others died when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree during take-off from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Others killed in the crash were pilot Robert N Elliott, musician Maury Muehleisen, comedian George Stevens, manager and booking agent Kenneth D Cortese and road manager Dennis Rast. Croce had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University’s Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches and was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College.
The plane crashed an hour after the concert. Croce was only 30 years old.
An investigation showed the plane crashed after clipping a pecan tree at the end of the runway. The pilot had failed to gain sufficient altitude to clear the tree and had not tried to avoid it, even though it was the only tree in the area.
It was dark, but there was a clear sky, calm winds, and over five miles of visibility with haze. The report from the NTSB named the probable cause as the pilot’s failure to see the obstruction because of his physical impairment and the fog reducing his vision. The 57-year-old Elliott suffered from severe coronary artery disease and had run three miles to the airport from a motel. He had an ATP Certificate, 14,290 hours total flight time and 2 190 hours in the Beech 18 type. A later investigation placed the sole blame on pilot error due to his downwind take-off into a ‘black hole’ – severe darkness limiting use of visual references.
Croce was buried at Haym Salomon Memorial Park in Frazer, Pennsylvania.
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