Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Adam Goldstein, known as celebrity DJ AM, were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people, authorities said today.
The Learjet was taking off shortly before midnight Friday with six people aboard, including two crew members, when air traffic controllers saw sparks. The plane, which was en route to Van Nuys airport, veered off the end of the runway, rolled through a fence and crashed on a nearby road, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.
Barker and Goldstein were in critical condition at a burn center in Augusta, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of Columbia, hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits said.
The Lexington County coroner said today that pilot Sarah Lemmon of Anaheim Hills and copilot James Bland of Carlsbad died. Also killed were passengers Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles.
At the crash site today, the air was still heavy with the odor of jet fuel. A trail of black soot led off a runway, across a five-lane road next to the airport and up an embankment. The nose of the aircraft was gone and the roof was missing from two-thirds of the charred plane.
An investigative team from the National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched to South Carolina.
Barker and Goldstein had performed together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night. "It's absolutely terrible and tragic," Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said.
The show, which included performances by former Jane's Addiction singer Perry Ferrell and singer Gavin DeGraw, drew 10,000 people into the streets of Five Points, the neighborhood near the University of South Carolina, Coble said.
Neither Ferrell nor DeGraw was on the plane, their representatives told AP on Saturday.
Barker is one of the more famous faces to rise up in the Southern California pop-punk scene and, unlike many drummers who are fairly anonymous figures at the rear of the stage, he parlayed his popularity into television roles, advertising appearances and varied business ventures.
The 33-year-old Fontana native came to fame as the drummer in the platinum-selling San Diego County band Blink-182, one of the top U.S. bands at the beginning of this decade.
After Blink broke-up, Barker went on to play with other rock bands such as +44, the Transplants and Box Car Racer, but he also established himself a musical chameleon, working with hip-hop acts such as Busta Rhymes, the Game, the Black Eyed Peas and the Oscar-winning group Three Six Mafia.
Barker and then-wife Shanna Moakler, a former Miss USA, were in front of the cameras along with their three children for "Meet the Barkers," the MTV domestic-life reality show that aired in 2005 and part of 2006. The rock star also appeared in the 1999 hit film "American Pie, and his television appearances include " CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," " The Simpsons," "MAD TV" and "MTV Cribs."
The tattoo-covered Barker, who often pops up in the gossip pages for his liaisons with celebrities, among them Paris Hilton, was also the subject of a popular 2006 Boost Mobile television commercial that has been viewed more than 800,000 times on YouTube.
Barker performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards with Goldstein, who goes by the stage moniker DJ AM. Goldstein was formerly in the band "Crazy Town" but today may be best known for his romances -- he was engaged for a time to "The Simple Life" star Nicole Richie and also had relationships with singer Mandy Moore and Canadian model Jessica Stam.
He is also the owner of popular Hollywood nightclub LAX, which has been a major spot in the celebrity circuit since its opening in 2005.
