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Drummer and producer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM were critically injured in a plane crash that claimed the lives of four others early Saturday morning (September 20) in South Carolina.
The pair had performed just hours earlier at free T-Mobile concert in Columbia, South Carolina, and were departing for Los Angeles.
According to the Associated Press, the Learjet departed shortly before midnight Friday (September 19) when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. Officials say it hurtled off the end of a runway, crashed through antennas and a fence, and then finally came to a stop on an embankment across a five-lane highway while engulfed in flames.
While Barker and AM (real name: Adam Goldstein) were critically injured, Travis' assistant Chris Baker and his bodyguard Charles Still died in the flames, as did the pilot and co-pilot.
TMZ reports that Barker and AM survived the crash by jumping out the door of the burning plane, almost immediately after the small jet came to a halt.
An eyewitness told MSNBC that he "a fireball rolling across the highway."
He then reported seeing two men who were "basically dumped out of the airplane upon the crash, who were standing in the road on fire, hitting each other trying to put the fire out," after which he attempted to "get in the plane to see if [I] could help anyone else but the flames at that point were just too bad."
They are both at a burn center being treated. While critical, they are said to be in stable condition. Barker was burned from the waist down, but is expected to survive, while DJ AM's face was severely burned, said TMZ.
In a tragic loss, Barker's assistant Chris Baker died at just 29. He was married recently and has a new baby. Still was 25 years old.
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