9.21.2008

DJ AM and Travis Barker



If you hadn't heard the news...
Travis Barker and DJ AM have been critically injured in a Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people. (Saturday Sept. 20, 2008)

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen tells the Associated Press the plane, carrying six people, was departing shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. It appears the plane was attempting to take off, ran off the runway through a fence and hit an embankment, according to initial reports. The plane then caught fire.

Sources tell TMZ.com that Barker and DJ AM saved their own lives by jumping out the door of the burning plane, almost immediately after the small jet came to a halt.

Barker and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein (and who was once engaged to Nicole Richie), were at a burn center in Augusta, Georgia. Beth Frits, spokeswoman at Joseph Still Burn Center, told CNN both men had "extensive burns."

TMZ.com reports that Barker has been burned from his waist down and that DJ AM's face was severely burned.
Federal officials say two crew members and two passengers have been killed. A coroner has identified three of the victims: Pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, of Anaheim Hills, Calif.; co-pilot James Bland, 52, of Carlsbad, Calif.; and Barker's assistant, Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, Calif. all died in the crash.

William Owens, who was driving down the highway when he said he saw a fireball go across the road, told a local TV station that the jet was "in flames and the fuel is running across the road and I had to cross the fuel to get to the two guys that seemed to have been dumped on the highway."

Owens said the two men, believed to be Barker and Goldstein, were in the road trying to extinguish themselves.

He told the station he asked the men if there was anyone else on board the plane; they said four more were with them.

"We turned to the jet to try and see if there was anything we could do, but immediately, there was nothing anyone could do," Owens said.

Barker and Goldstein, who perform together under the name TRVSDJ-AM, played a free concert in Columbia, South Carolina's college neighborhood Friday night.

Please keep these two artists, the deceased and the respective families in your thoughts and prayers.


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