Travis Barker, DJ AM Jet Crash Caused By Under-Inflated Tires

An investigation into the South Carolina jet crash that killed four people and seriously injured Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein has found that under-inflated tires were to blame for the September 2008 accident. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, while the jet traveled at over 150 mph on the runway, all four of its tires exploded within seconds of each other, hurling debris into the hydraulic system and causing the plane's brakes to fail when pilots attempted to abort the takeoff, the Associated Press reports.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, a cockpit recording revealed that the pilots thought a tire blew out as they attempted to take off. Barker's assistant Chris Baker and security guard Charles Still, as well as the two pilots, were killed in the crash when the private plane overran the runway, plowed through a fence and spilled out onto the highway, engulfed in flames. Both Barker and Goldstein managed to escape the crash with serious burns. However, DJ AM's need for prescription medicine during his recovery is considered to be the catalyst that led Goldstein, who had been sober for over a decade after battling addiction, to begin using drugs again, leading to a fatal overdose last year.

Look back at DJ AM's life in photos.

The NTSB also cited damages to the plane's thrust reversers and the pilot's relative inexperience in that aircraft as contributing factors. However, it was lack of maintenance on the tires that caused them to explode: The NTSB found that the charter company hadn't checked the tires' pressure in three weeks, and considering the tires lost two percent of their pressure a day, they'd need to be replaced after eight days. Barker and the families of Baker and Still have settled lawsuits with several companies involved in the crash, while the family of DJ AM have filed a wrongful death suit in the case, blaming the jet crash the cause of Goldstein's overdose 11 months later.

Related Stories:

• Blown Tire Likely Cause of Travis Barker, DJ AM Jet Crash
• Travis Barker and DJ AM Critically Injured in Plane Crash
• DJ AM Found Dead in New York

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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