When country star Reba McEntire lost eight members of her team in a 1991 plane crash, a lot of “rumors and misinformation” ended up in the press just because her name was attached to the tragedy. So, when she set out to write her autobiography, she sent her collaborator on a fact-finding mission. And eventually, they uncovered a “deadly” miscommunication that seemed to help catalyze the tragedy.
Reba McEntire was in a hotel room with Narvel Blackstock when her band’s plane crashed
In Reba: My Story, McEntire detailed the hours around the crash on March 16, 1991. She’d performed a show in San Diego with her band, and though she was staying the night in a hotel, they were immediately flying out on two planes. The concert was scheduled to end late, and the airport would close very soon after. So, they arranged to have the aircrafts waiting in a nearby field.
According to McEntire, she and her ex-husband, Narvel Blackstock, retired to their hotel room after her show and their plan was to meet up with her band the next day. She was asleep and he was still awake watching television when the phone rang.
An associate reported to Blackstock “both planes taxied to the end of the runway” but then something went wrong. He said, “I got in my car to come back to the hotel. I looked in my rearview mirror and I saw this huge ball of fire. And I don’t know if it was them or not.”
Reba McEntire said ‘rumors and misinformation’ about the tragedy made it to the press
As McEntire wrote in her autobiography, the crash was devastating in itself. But certain outlets made things worse by printing “rumors and misinformation,” like gossip about the pilots drinking alcohol before the flight. As such, McEntire sent her book collaborator, Tom Carter, on a “fact-finding mission” to piece together what happened.
He not only compiled all the documentation and witness accounts he could find, he went to San Diego’s Otay Mountain to “record everything he saw, heard, and felt at the death scene.”
And first and foremost, they dispelled the myth about the pilots drinking. They’d only been drinking coffee, according to the person who served them.
But McEntire also wanted to try and get to the bottom of what actually went wrong. And she eventually found potential for confusion in the communications between one of the pilots and the person providing assistance from the air traffic tower.
Reba McEntire said a ‘deadly miscommunication’ led to tragedy
According to McEntire, what seemingly caused the crash was a “miscommunication [that] would be deadly” between the pilot and a flight service specialist.
The pilot asked if he should stay below 3,000 feet and meant above sea level. But the specialist apparently thought he meant altitude, and that made a difference of several hundred feet. So, the plane was flying too low. Unfortunately, one of the wings clipped a rock when the pilot thought leveling off would be safe.
“The pilot obviously had no idea that a killing peak lay in his path,” McEntire wrote. Tragically, everyone onboard died in the crash.
The victims included seven members of the country singer’s band, Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kay Evans, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas, her tour manager, Jim Hammon, and two pilots, Donald Holms and Chris Hollinger.
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