… They used that name kind of as a joke to get back at him for kicking them out of school for long hair, then everybody ended up friends with Coach Skinner.” “The guys changed the name and the pronunciation. “His name was Leonard Skinner,” Pyle said. … Ronnie left a pretty large legacy in spite of his short time on earth.”įormed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964, the band named itself after a gym teacher. “That’s where the sadness might come, thinking about the potential music that would have come out. “When you lose somebody like Ronnie Van Zant, who was the lead singer, visionary and prolific writer for the group … he and Steve would have written many more songs,” Pyle said. Pyle survived alongside guitarist Allen Collins, guitarist Gary Rossington, bassist Leon Wilkeson, keyboardist Billy Powell, singer Leslie Hawkins, tour manager Ron Eckerman and several crew members, but the loss of Van Zant and Gaines devastated the band. Then, of course, the four members of our organization: Dean Kilpatrick, who was an amazing guy, and Cassie Gaines, she sat in front of me. “Our pilot and co-pilot, I found them before I left the crash site, and they were both definitely dead. “I think about the people that perished every single day,” Pyle said. The crash killed Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray. I was upset, I was scared, my friends were dead before my eyes.” … When I walked out of that swamp and forest … I went to the farmhouse and came back. … I did help a couple of people out of the plane … a little bit of triage. “I’ve never called myself a hero, but Gary Rossington did for years. “I was fully aware of every single second,” Pyle said. We realized that we just needed to hang on because it was going to be rough - and it was.”Īfter impact, Pyle crawled out of the wreckage with broken ribs to get help from a local farmhouse in rural Mississippi. “There were a couple of incidents where a band member got really mad at the pilot and co-pilot for letting this happen, so there was a little bit of yelling going on, but everybody pretty much remained calm. “We all knew what was happening,” Pyle said. I played stewardess and told everybody to put out their cigarettes, turn off any lights and conserve any energy, told everybody to fasten their seatbelts.” … I kept going back and forth to the cockpit to relay information to the cabin. “My life didn’t flash before my eyes, all I was doing was trying to assess,” Pyle said. What was he thinking as the plane was about to crash? … We took on 400 gallons of fuel the engine was not running properly, using more fuel than necessary.” … We almost made it, but we ran out of fuel at 9,000 feet. … We were only 60 miles away from Louisiana. It was a 1947 Convair, so you can’t trust the gauges. “The pilots made a fatal mistake … not checking the tank. That’s when disaster struck during their flight to Baton Rouge. We were going to do a United States leg of the tour using our airplane that we had our name on, then we were going to go to Australia, Japan, Europe. “Then we were heading to Baton Rouge, Louisiana on a 95-city world tour. “The last time Ronnie Van Zant ever played ‘Free Bird’ was in Greenville,” Pyle said.
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