The Learjet crash that almost killed Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker

On September 19, 2008, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker boarded a Learjet 60 at Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) in South Carolina to fly to Los Angeles. What happened in the next moments would change his life forever.

Within seconds of starting its takeoff roll, the jet had crashed into an embankment and burst into flames. Barker survived, but with life-changing injuries, and this near-death experience led him to reassess his life and priorities. 

Here’s what you need to know about the Travis Barker plane crash, why it happened, and how Barker is doing now.

How did the Travis Barker plane crash happen?

It was just before midnight when the Learjet was preparing to take off. Boarding the Learjet along with Barker was his assistant and friend Chris Baker, and his security guard Che Still. Also on board was his best friend DJ AM, also known as Adam Goldstein. 

Operating the flight was Global Exec Aviation, a charter company based in Long Beach, California. On the flight deck that day were James Bland and Sarah Lemmon. The aircraft was a two-year-old Learjet 60 with only 108 flight hours on the aircraft.

As the jet commenced its takeoff roll, Barker recounts hearing two loud bangs that he describes as “like a gunshot”. Air traffic controllers saw sparks coming from the plane. The pilots radioed in to say they were aborting the takeoff but to send out emergency equipment as they were going off the end of the runway.

The aircraft continued to hurtle down the 8,000 ft runway, overrunning the end and crashing through the airport’s boundary fence. It crossed a five-lane highway and smashed into an embankment, bursting into flames.

NTSBInvestigation after the crash found that the ‘gunshot’ sound had been caused by a bursting tire. Several ruined tires were found on the aircraft and pieces of rubber were strewn across the runway. Just bad luck? Not exactly.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that several tires were severely underinflated before takeoff and, as a result, were punctured on the runway. Pieces of tire damaged the aircraft’s hydraulic system, causing the brakes to fail.

The biggest mistake was aborting the takeoff when they did. The pilots abandoned takeoff at 144 knots, beyond the V1 or ‘decision speed’ for the Learjet 60 – 136 knots. This violated operating procedures and meant the jet had no chance of stopping before the end of the runway, even if its brakes had been operational.

Compounding this was an inadvertent retraction of the thrust reversers. The reversers had been deployed in the seconds following the decision to reject the takeoff, but a safety feature that’s designed to stop reversers from deploying mid-flight kicked in and stowed them, further reducing the aircraft’s ability to slow.

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How did Travis Barker survive the plane crash?

Passengers Che Still and Chris Baker died on impact. The two pilots died from smoke inhalation and burns in the minutes after the crash. Goldstein was barely conscious following the crash, but woke up to Travis screaming and trying to open a door.

Barker has said both he and Goldstein were covered in jet fuel and their clothes were on fire. They slid down the wings of the aircraft to get out, ripping off their clothes as they hit the ground until someone yelled to them to ‘stop, drop and roll.’

The two men told first responders there were four other people on board, but there was nothing they could do to save them. It took firefighters over an hour to bring the blaze under control.

Barker had burns on 65% of his body, both second- and third-degree. Goldstein suffered severe burns on his arms and scalp. Both would spend many weeks in hospital following the crash, having skin grafts and other lifesaving treatment.

Goldstein suffered severe depression and anxiety in the months that followed and died a year later from a drug overdose. A close friend of his told the New York Times, “I think the plane crash killed him… it just took a year for it to do it.”

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How many surgeries did Travis Barker have after the plane crash?

Travis Barker spent more than 11 weeks in hospital and burn centers. He went through 26 surgeries, which were often complicated by his high tolerance to opioids after using them recreationally for many years. He had several blood transfusions and numerous skin grafts.

When he was talking about the accident on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the drummer said: “When I was in the hospital, I was on so many drugs I didn’t even know my two friends had passed away. I didn’t know the pilots had passed away. I didn’t remember anything.”

Barker’s injuries were severe. Doctors thought they were going to have to amputate his foot, and at one point medical officers had to remove his phone from his room because he was calling friends and begging them to help him end his life, so severe was the pain.

“I was told I wasn’t going to run again because I had so many grafts on my feet, and there was even talk of me never playing the drums again.”Travis BarkerHow long did it take Travis Barker to recover from the plane crash?

Barker’s time in the hospital meant he missed the funerals of his friends who died in the crash. The road to recovery has been long and hard, but some good has come out of it, not least that it led him to quit abusing prescription painkillers and smoking marijuana. 

“People are always like, ‘Did you go to rehab?’” Barker said. “And I say, ‘No, I was in a plane crash.’ That was my rehab. Lose three of your friends and almost die? That was my wake-up call. If I wasn’t in a crash, I would have probably never quit.”

Barker has also had therapy for PTSD and survivors guilt, but continued to refuse to fly after the crash. Talking about it to Men’s Health, Barker said, 

“If I saw a plane, I was determined it was going to crash, and I just didn’t want to see it. The closer I was to it, the closer I felt to the experience of trying to escape, being in an accident and being burned, trying to grab my friends from a burning plane.”Travis BarkerIn 2021, Barker boarded a plane for the first time in 13 years with his now-wife Kourtney Kardashian. The two took a private jet to Cabo, Mexico with Barker’s children. Determined to travel, he has since taken many flights, including to Portofino in Italy where he married Kourtney in 2022.

It’s still hard to fly, he says, particularly in the wake of several high-profile plane crashes over the past few months. In December, an Azerbaijan Airlines E190 crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, then days later, Jeju Air’s 737 crashed and exploded in South Korea. More recently, the Potomac River mid-air collision, the loss of a Bering Air Cessna 208 in Alaska and the dramatic crash of a Delta CRJ have heightened his nerves.

“It’s hard for me to get on flights,” he told Fox News in February 2025. “You tell yourself, these things never happen. These things never happen. And then, just lately, I feel like we’re seeing it almost every day.”

Nevertheless, the drummer is determined not to let the accident define him. Blink-182 reformed in the years following the crash, and Barker continues to tour with the group, having just wrapped up their ‘One More Time’ world tour in November 2024.

Lessons learned from the Travis Barker plane crash

The NTSB made several recommendations following the crash investigation, including:

Requirements for Learjet 60 pilots to receive training on recognizing an inadvertent thrust reverser stowage

Increased focus on tire maintenance, including improved information to pilots and maintenance personnel on the importance and consequences of underinflated tires

Simulator training for pilots specifically on tire failure scenarios

Requirements for pilots to have a minimum level of operating experience and flight time in new aircraft types

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