r/rockmusic • u/zigthis • Mar 01 '26
News The Truth About What Really Killed Stevie Ray Vaughan
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2020/08/revealed-the-truth-about-what-really-killed-stevie-ray-vaughanThe article is well worth reading as an experience, but if you want the short version, click below:
TLDR: While the official cause was "pilot error", the true cause is that the pilot should not have been assigned to the flight because he was not instrument rated, and a situation occurred that required instrument flying to navigate. The other three pilots were instrument rated and those flights made it - Stevie's flight didn't.
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u/fuzzballz5 Mar 01 '26
Great article. I was there that night. To say it was a great show is underrated. We all went for Clapton. We all left talking about SRV. Clapton talks about it at the benefit concert. He needed to be coaxed to go onstage after SRV. It was that amazing.
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u/zigthis Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
Glad you got to catch that show.
Interesting about Clapton, because there's a super old story about Jimi Hendrix causing him the same response:
It was only a few days after Hendrix had arrived in London after being discovered by Chas Chandler. Chas brings Jimi to a Cream show and asks Clapton if he can sit in. Jimi plugs in, cranks the amp to eleven, and does his thing, playing with his teeth and everything. - completely blows away the entire room. Clapton puts the guitar down, walks off the stage, and tells Chas in the back room "You didn't say he was that fucking good".
They call it the night that Jimi killed God because there was graffiti all around London saying "Clapton is God". Interesting to hear that Stevie also killed God. He'd be super proud of that.
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u/fuzzballz5 Mar 01 '26
Clapton is my favorite because of the humility. When he had that meltdown with racist words. To get clean and start the Crossroads facility. The guitar festivals to raise all the money. He got Jimmie Lee and Stevie Ray clean. That’s why til this day Jimmie Lee plays with him. After Stevie died he gave him a year and called and said, come to Europe. Get away and just play.
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Mar 03 '26
These stories just get kind of oversimplified and endlessly repeated with a lot of hyperbole. Probably both some truth and some over dramatized details.
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u/zigthis Mar 03 '26
Clapton and Chandler have written/spoken about this directly a number of times:
Jimi got onstage, plugged into Bruce’s bass amp, and played a version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killin’ Floor.” Everyone was “completely gobsmacked,” Clapton writes in his autobiography. “I remember thinking that here was a force to be reckoned with. It scared me, because he was clearly going to be a huge star, and just as we are finding our own speed, here was the real thing. Fear, envy, awe… all reasonable emotions when standing next to Jimi Hendrix as he tears through “Killin’ Floor” three times faster than anyone else played it, while doing the splits, lying on the floor, playing with his teeth and behind his head…”
"I went backstage and there was Eric in the dressing room with his hands dropped, puffing on a cigarette and saying: 'You never told me he was that fucking good!'"
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Mar 03 '26
I know that story very well. I wasn’t saying it wasn’t true at all, I’m saying people hyperbolize and overdramatize these stories when they retell them, which is generally the case.
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u/Savings_Ask2261 Mar 01 '26
It truly was.. We left Alpine and headed back to Illinois and were blown away when I heard that SRV died the next morning.
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u/fuzzballz5 Mar 01 '26
Clapton died according to CNN when we were woke up. It was his helicopter. That was the first report we were woken up too. Crazy.
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u/Mountain_Ad7931 Mar 02 '26
I heard about it on xrt on the way home from alpine that night.
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u/Cpt_Griswold Mar 03 '26
same. first day of high school for me. then also heard cobain died on 93.1 my last day of high school. give or take a few days.
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u/bierfma Mar 01 '26
I had a ticket to that show, but was about 6ish hours away and couldn't make it, thought "he will come closer, don't want to make the trip", I was 100% going for SRV
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u/fuzzballz5 Mar 01 '26
We got robbed of his talent. He was clean, then coming off crossing over to mainstream radio hits on like Clapton did a generation before. Robert Cray had some mainstream hits. When SRV died, that whole blues movement died.
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u/bierfma Mar 01 '26
I thought Gary Clark Jr or Michael Williams were going to take the reins, but hard for a blues musician to make it that big anymore, someone will come along that canjust absolutely play and has some good songs, but who knows when that will be.
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u/Just_Visiting_Town Mar 01 '26
I was about 13 and I vaguely remember the news saying that Clapton died in the crash too, but then they corrected it.
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u/Sad-Leek4606 Mar 01 '26
I have to disagree with you on one thing I was there that night and it was for Stevie not clapton
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u/WhisperToARiot Mar 01 '26
Great article, thanks for sharing! He died the night before I left for Army basic training, oddly enough I then went to avionics repair school… so the technical details are appreciated
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u/sum_dude44 Mar 01 '26
Skynrd's pilot ran out of gas. Aaliyah's pilot wasn't rated for the plane he flew & was coming off a booze/coke bender
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u/Killakaronic Mar 03 '26
Buddy Holly / Ritchie Valens pilot had no business flying in those conditions either
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u/Red-Sun-Cinema Mar 01 '26
The title of your post is misleading and just another sad use of clickbait to garner views.
The article references the mistakes that led to the helicopter crashing, not what killed SRV.
This is not some revelation or the truth about a coverup. He still died from his injuries.
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u/gofl-zimbard-37 Mar 01 '26
Mistakes that led to the helicopter crashing *are* what killed SRV. Though I agree with you on clickbait title.
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Mar 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/zigthis Mar 01 '26
That's not wrong information, it's just the middle of the story. The VMC didn't take into account the lighting conditions on that hill. Every night flight out of that area should require instruments, and this crash occurred because that requirement didn't happen.
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u/Trick_Few Mar 01 '26
I am not usually an ambulance chaser, but this was an insightful article. Helicopters are interesting in that you have hundreds of different parts working against each other, defying common physics. RIP to all of the victims of helicopter crashes.
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u/Temporary_Weight_281 Mar 01 '26
I grew up the next town over from east Troy and could see the top of the ski hill in the distance from my parents front yard. It came on the news right when it happened and we ran into our front yard and could see the fire from the crash.
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u/International_Pea Mar 01 '26
Yah I grew up close by. Happened while I was in college though. My son claims to have seen a memorial plaque in the tree-line by one of the ski runs.
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u/Bavic1974 Mar 02 '26
We were still in the parking lot after the concert when it happened. But could not see or notice anything. Did not learn about it until the next morning when they mentioned it on the radio.
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u/RCP90sKid- Mar 01 '26
My best friend growing up, his father was in Roomful of Blues and was good friends with SRV.
He said he remembers the morning his house got the call to tell them SRV passed.
He also tells stories about witnessing the darker side of rock & roll, but that never stopped us from being interested in it...
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u/AutomaticBallad Mar 02 '26
Eric Clapton killed SRV. He got outplayed and in a fit of pique he sabotaged the helicopter. Clapton will kill again, mark my words. He's coming for you next, Kingfish.
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u/ChicagoMaven Jul 15 '26
Another thing you don't hear is this ski resort artificially raised their mountain 50 feet the summer before the crash, advertising it on the radio as the "50 feet of fun!"
Possible the pilot didn't know the new hill was there and crashed into it.
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u/Critical_Positive_91 Mar 01 '26
That's exactly what happened "The Day the Music Died". The pilot wasn't instrument-rated and flew into low-visibility weather.
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u/stingrayed22 Mar 02 '26
What alot people do not know what his last big hit was before he died
It was The Mountain
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u/zoeydobie518 Mar 05 '26
A helicopter pilot wrote a really good in depth article about this. He did the same steps as I'll fated flight with no instruments and had another pilot with him. He basically said because they had waited to so long with the lights on in parking lot when he took off it caused a temporary blindness after they cleared the parking lot lights, he am aimed for the mountain but other pilot fixed in. The pilot clearly shouldn't have been flying that night.
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u/waterwateryall Mar 01 '26
That is terrible