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Stars Who Were Lucky Enough To Survive Plane Crashes

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Four people never made it off that Learjet in Columbia, South Carolina — but Travis Barker and DJ AM did, and it changed both of them for the rest of their lives.

Air travel remains statistically the safest way to get around, but when something does go wrong at 30,000 feet, the wreckage doesn’t care about box office numbers or Billboard charts. Some of the biggest names in music, film and country radio have walked — or been carried — away from crashes and emergency landings that killed the people sitting next to them. Nicki Swift’s rundown of celebrities who survived plane disasters lays out just how close several of them came to not making it at all.

• Travis Barker suffered third-degree burns across 65 percent of his body after a 2008 Learjet crash in Columbia, South Carolina, that killed both pilots, his security guard Charles Still, and his assistant Chris Baker.
• Harrison Ford broke bones and suffered a head injury crash-landing a World War II-era Ryan PT-22 Recruit onto a Venice, California golf course in March 2015 after the engine failed on takeoff.
• Reba McEntire lost eight band members and two pilots when their charter plane crashed near San Diego in 1991 — she survived only because she’d flown separately on another aircraft.

The Learjet Crash That Nearly Killed Travis Barker

The September 2008 crash outside Columbia, South Carolina remains one of the most harrowing survival stories in the piece. The Learjet carrying Barker and Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein went down on takeoff, killing both pilots along with Barker’s security guard, Charles Still, and his assistant, Chris Baker. Barker escaped the burning wreckage but with third-degree burns covering 65 percent of his body, sending him into burn centers for months of surgeries and skin grafts.

The physical damage was only part of it. Barker developed severe aerophobia and post-traumatic stress disorder in the aftermath, and he’s spoken openly about how the crash reshaped his relationship with flying and with his own mortality. Goldstein survived as well, with severe burns and smoke inhalation of his own, but he died of an accidental drug overdose in 2009 — a loss that added a second layer of grief to a crash Barker was already fighting to recover from.

Barker spent months in burn centers undergoing numerous surgeries after suffering third-degree burns across 65 percent of his body.

Goldstein’s death a year after the crash is the kind of gutting footnote that shows up in other survival stories, too — a reminder that walking away from the wreckage isn’t always the end of the danger. It’s a thread that runs through other celebrity deaths that came far too soon, and it’s echoed in stories like Avicii’s father confirming what fans suspected about his son’s tragic death.

Harrison Ford’s Repeated Brushes With Disaster

Harrison Ford isn’t just an actor who happens to fly — he’s a genuinely experienced pilot who has logged real hours in vintage aircraft, which makes his string of emergency landings even more notable. The most serious came in March 2015, when the engine on his World War II-era Ryan PT-22 Recruit failed shortly after takeoff. Ford crash-landed the plane onto a golf course in Venice, California, and came away with broken bones and a head injury.

Ford’s willingness to keep flying afterward, despite the injuries, is part of what makes his entry in this rundown stand out from the others — most of the survivors here didn’t choose to be in the cockpit or even near it.

Reba McEntire’s Devastating 1991 Loss

Not every story in the segment is about a celebrity who was on the plane. Reba McEntire’s brush with tragedy came from being spared. In 1991, a charter plane carrying eight members of her band and two pilots crashed near San Diego, killing everyone aboard. McEntire survived only because she had flown on a separate aircraft that night — a detail that has shaped her career and her public advocacy ever since. The loss is still referenced as one of the defining tragedies of her life, the kind of survivor’s grief that doesn’t come with physical scars but never fully goes away.

Bono’s Mid-Air Scare Over Germany

Not every close call in the piece ends in tragedy. In 2014, U2 frontman Bono was aboard his private Learjet when a tailgate detached mid-flight during approach over Germany. The plane landed safely with no injuries, but the incident is a reminder of how quickly a routine flight can turn into a genuine emergency — even for musicians who spend as much time in the air as Bono and other touring acts who quietly deal with more turbulence than fans ever hear about.

Barker still performs, still tours, and still talks about the crash when asked — he’s never pretended the fear went away. What separates his story from the others in this rundown is that it didn’t end with the wreckage; it kept going through burn wards, panic attacks, and a friend’s overdose a year later. That’s the part Nicki Swift’s segment keeps coming back to: surviving the crash was only the first fight.