The death of Randy Rhoads, discovered.

[Hempdiddy]

I know that it being 27th anniversary of Randy Rhoads' death last week, I'm a few days late posting this, but there are a few items that I'd like to share with everybody. A few present-day photos of the Rhoads crash site have come into my possession:






This is the airfield from where Randy Rhoads took off alive and would never return. Imagine that this landscape, these trees, and these buildings are the last things that the three victims ever saw.






The road and entrance to the bus depot and airport.






The location of the accident. You can see the mansion, and behind the two dark green, round-ish palm trees in the middle of the photo, is the garage that the plane crashed into and exploded. Heading from left to right is the airstrip; it can be seen as a thin strip of concrete along the wooden fence line. Between the airstrip and the group of very large trees on the right of the photo is where the tour bus would have most likely been parked. After striking the tour bus, the plane severed a large pine tree. That pine tree may have been amongst the group of large trees on the right or amongst the other large pine trees seen rising from the back/center of the photo.





This is where it all went down, literally. When I think of Randy Rhoads and the way he was taken from this earth, I become very sad and feel heart-broken. These images show a place where events occurred that would change hard rock forever. Who knows, for certain, what other types of music Randy would have given to the world? These images seem to show a world that has gone on since 1982, but for those of us who understand, these image have powerful impact. It shows a place of heavy consequence, deep despair, and untimely ruin.

[Skynyrdpicker]

Plane crashes kill so many amazing musicians, it's terrible... RIP Randy Rhoads, and all the others who have fallen from the sky.

[Joeydego]

Its my understanding he was in the bus when the plane hit it.

[transparentbluefanatic]

steve ray fell from the sky too....

[Skynyrdpicker]

Originally Posted by Joeydego

Its my understanding he was in the bus when the plane hit it.

You could be right; I don't know much about RR unfortunately, but I did look him up on Wikipedia and their story claimed he was in the plane when he tragically passed away.

[Geetarguy]

Originally Posted by Joeydego

Its my understanding he was in the bus when the plane hit it.

Randy was on the plane....

[Joeydego]

it appears you are correct.

[StrangerNY]

Right. Randy was in the plane and Oz was sleeping in the bus, IIRC.

- D

[Wolff]

Kind of hard to read, but this explains what happened.

[jrnic]

Yes, he was IN the plane when it went down. I still have the original newspaper article I tore out. I put it in the tour book from the 1982 tour. I had tickets for their Long Island show at Nassau Coliseum that was supposed to happen a month or so after the accident. I got the tour book when the show was rescheduled and I saw Brad Gillis play guitar. I have to say Gillis did a phenomenal job playing that night, but it was still no Randy Rhoads. I'll never forget all the banners and signs all over the arena that night with Randy's name/face on them.

[Jody]

Read this book......

Amazon.com: Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz: Rudy Sarzo: Books

Amazon.com: Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz: Rudy Sarzo: Books

And I promise you,,,
You will find the best view of the story by someone that was there,and Randy's close freind ...
I am fan of Randy's..
I have gathered as much info as I could about him over a 27 year period...
And in my point of veiw,Andy Aycock was/and is responsable for the death of Randy Rhoads..
There is a reason why Don Airey ( keyboards) was so tramatized....
Read the book.
You will see why I say this.........

And yes Randy was in the plane,Up front... with Aycock in the pilot seat,
And Rachel Youngblood was in the back.....
Randy,And Aycocks bodies were found in the garage,burnt beyond reconition..
Randy's jewlery,And Aycocks dental records were the means of identifacation...
Youngblood's had to be the body described in the article WOLFF posted
that was found by the garage window

I could tell you more,,,
But then you wouldnt read the book............


Wolff..
That was the story I believed for 27 years......
Now I dont agree to parts of that story....(Thanks to Rudy Sarzo)



The garage where Randy,and Aycock,s bodies were found


And this was the only peice of the plane that was found that was bigger that a telephone at the site.
It is part of the wing that struck the bus



If you look in the back ground of the wing picture,,,
You can see its almost the same veiw as HIMPDIDDYS first picture.......The palm trees....thanx for posting/sharing them....

[Hempdiddy]

Wow. Great info jodymauk!

[Harpozep]

Great info guys. i never knew much about his death other than it seemed like playtime gone very bad.. I'll look for that book too. Thanks.

[Deftone]

Wow, this just hit home.

My good friend Richard's brother Paul Lopez just died in a plane crash in Fla.: Aerobatic pilot, teen die in Pasco plane crash during practice - St. Petersburg Times

We took Richard out bar hopping Saturday. We all got smashed and remembered Paul. I just realized how close it was to R.R.'s anniversary.

[lennon47]

Originally Posted by Geetarguy

Randy was on the plane....

lolz

[Hempdiddy]

R.I.P. Randy

[Blues Power]

I still remembeer that day and exactly what i was doing when i heard the news.
Its frozen in time like 9-11, SRV's death like when my parents tell me about JFK


I was under a 71 Mustang doing ball joints when a freind came over and told me the news.

[voices]

i saw Randy two weeks before he died. i have a few never before published photos from that concert. it was a terrible loss.

[ehamady6]

According to an accident report filed by the National Transit Safety Board, Rhoads, 25, Rachel Youngblood, the band's 58-year-old seamstress and cook, and bus driver Andrew Aycock, 36, a licensed pilot, commandeered a small, single-engine 1955 Beechcraft Bonanza F35 plane sometime between nine and 10 a.m. on March 19, 1982. The aircraft had been parked in a hangar at Flying Baron Estases in Leesburg, Florida, where its owner, Jerry Calhoun, owner a house. Aycock, who also owned a home there, reportedly took the plane without permission. The group's tour bus--a Greyhound-type vehicle with a golden-brown top and white bottom--was parked approximately 60 feet from a north-facing residence, a white Georgian-style mansion adjacent to the airstrip. Ozzy Osbourne, manager Sharon Arden, and bassist Rudy Sarzo were asleep on the bus at the time of the accident. Keyboardist Don Airey, who was on the bus bur awake, witnessed the crass. During the flight, the pilot made three low passes at tree-top level in an attemp to "buzz" the tour bus. On the fourth pass, while the plane was flying approximately 10 feet above the ground at speeds between 140 and 180 m.p.h., the plane's left wing collided with the rear of the bus. The bulk of the aircraft crossed over the bus and severed a large pine tree before crashing through the north side wall and roof of the garage on the west end of the mansion. The plane exploded and burned on impact with the house, which was also gutted by the ensuing fire. Two vehicles parked inside the garage, an Oldsmobile and a Ford Granada, were destroyed. Visiblity conditions were clear and the weather was not a factor in the crash. The bus was extensively damaged on both its right and left sides. Meanwhile, at the crash site, one victim was found outside the window of the garage, just below where the plane struck the wall. The other two victims were found inside the garage, one beside and one atop the burned-out automobiles. The bodies were burned beyond recognition. Rhoads had to be identified by his jewelry and Aycock through dental records. Fiberglass from the explosive impact of the plane was scattered over more than an acre, with no part of the plane larger than a telephone, expect the one crumpled wing which struck the bus. Toxicology reports conducted on Rhoads and Aycock at the Federal Aviation Administration's civil aeromedical institute in Oklahoma City, determined that Rhoads had only nicotine in his system, but no drugs or alcohol. Cocaine was found in Aycock's urine. A day after the crash, a shaken Ozzy Osbourne gave a sworn affidavit to the authorities:"At approximately nine a.m. on Friday, March 19, 1982, I was awoken from my sleep by a loud explosion. I immerdiately though that we'd hit a vehicle on the road. I got out of the bed, screaming to my fiancé, Sharon, ´get off the bus!´ Meanwhile, she was screaming to everyone else to get off the bus. After getting out of the bus, I saw that a plane had crashed. I didn't know who was on the plane at the time. When we realized that our people were on the plane, I found it very difficult to get assistance from anyone to help. In fact, it took almost a half-hour before anyone arrived. One small fire engine arrived, which appeared to squirt three gallons of water over the inferno. We asked for further assistance, such as telephones, and didn't receive any further help. In the end, we finally found a telephone and Sharon phoned her father." Randy Rhoads was dead, but mourning for the man who, as Guitar World proclaimed, "could have been the greatest" had only just begun.

[ehamady6]

I still get pissed off when I see that plaque with his name misspelled:


Thankfully it was fixed:

[Satch0922]

www.randyrhoads.tk • Index page

if your using Firefox for your browser you will get a "warning" but there is no threat.

This is the best RR forum site I have found over the years. Lots of info, pics, mp3,etc.

[Jody]

Satch thanx for thr link.....


I find it very comforting to see that I have found a home
where other people share the same love,and intrest of Randy...
I really hope that people dont get "Burnt out" on talking about him....
We can talk about Slash,Jimmy Page ,Jimi Hendrix
All we want .........
But........
For the month of March..we should remember the guy that started sooo many
Of us into the world of guitar..................

And with that said I thank you all...............

[Hempdiddy]

Wow! This is really fascinating! Take a look at how the 1982 pic is taken from the house facing north and the 2009 pic is from the north facing south.

27 years later and life, humbly, for some goes on...

[banditguitarist1]

R.I.P Randy, he was an incredible musician and person, its such an awful incident. Randys intentions of why he took the flight may never been known but its a huge lose to everyone.

[ta bell]

I will never forget that day, god it's been so long ago now.

[Blazer]

I remember watching the "Don't blame me" Ozzy Osbourne DVD and Ozzy talked about the music video for "Crazy train" which featured Randy's polka dot Flying V.

Ozzy said that they got permission from Dolores Rhoads (Randy's mother) to use the guitar for the video and she came by with the guitar which hadn't been out of its case at all after Randy died. Ozzy said that it was weird to open the case and not just finding the guitar there but also cigarettes, bottle caps, an opened package of breath mints and even a sweaty T-shirt that Randy wore prior to his death. So many personal attributes of Randy were still there waiting for their owner to collect them.

YouTube - Randy Rhoads - Crazy Train Video (From Tribute Album)

YouTube - Randy Rhoads - Crazy Train Video (From Tribute Album)

[SGMM]

RIP Randy!!

[SwedenRockMag]

Hi!

Can anyone tell me who took these pictures?

Sweden Rock Magazine is working on a Randy Rhoads "In memoriam"-article and we'd like to publish these photos. We'd like to get in touch with the photographer to clear the rights.

If you have any info that could help us out, please e-mail me at thomas@swedenrock.com

Originally Posted by Jody

Read this book......Amazon.com: Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz: Rudy Sarzo: Books



The garage where Randy,and Aycock,s bodies were found


And this was the only peice of the plane that was found that was bigger that a telephone at the site.
It is part of the wing that struck the bus



If you look in the back ground of the wing picture,,,
You can see its almost the same veiw as HIMPDIDDYS first picture.......The palm trees....thanx for posting/sharing them....

[Jody]

I imagine those were taken by the Local Florida authorities...
This thread is so old ,I don't remember where I found them,I just have them in my personal library....
Along with this one that was taken before the crash..

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Jody

I imagine those were taken by the Local Florida authorities...
This thread is so old ,I don't remember where I found them,I just have them in my personal library....
Along with this one that was taken before the crash..

This photo is from your personal library??? or one without the heading maybe?...!!!