WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. – After a few hours performing for thousands of South Carolina college students, former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash that killed four people, September 20, 2008, Saturday. Officials said the plane carrying six people was departing shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. The plane hurtled off the end of a runway and came to rest a quarter-mile away on an embankment across a five-lane highway, engulfed in flames.
Barker and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were in critical but stable condition at a burn center in Augusta, Ga., on Saturday afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits said. Augusta is about 75 miles southwest of Columbia.
One witness said he was driving when a fireball streaked across the highway about 600 feet ahead of him. William Owns said he approached to see the two survivors frantically trying to remove their burning clothes.
"I noticed two guys who were on fire and it looked like a dance: They didn't know what to do," said Owens, a 60-year-old delivery van driver.
"'Oh my God' was all they were saying," Owens said of Barker and Goldstein. "They stood there and it's like - didn't know what to do. None of us did."
Two other passengers - Chris Baker, 29, and Charles Still, 25 - died, as did pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, and co-pilot James Bland, 52, according to the county coroner. Baker was an assistant to Barker and Still was a security guard for the musician.
