Jim Croce - Death

Death

On September 20, 1973, the day that his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce, Muehleisen, and four others were killed in the crash of a chartered Beechcraft E18S upon takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Croce had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University's Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches and was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College, when the plane crashed about an hour after the end of the concert.

According to results of an investigation, upon takeoff the plane did not gain enough altitude to clear, and the pilot did not maneuver to avoid a pecan tree at the end of the runway, which investigators said was the only tree for hundreds of yards. The flight conditions were reported as dark, clear sky, calm winds, and over five miles of visibility with haze. The official report from the NTSB lists the probable cause as pilot failure to see and avoid objects or obstructions with factors of pilot physical impairment and fog obstructing vision. The report remarks that the 57-year-old charter pilot suffered from severe coronary artery disease and had just run about three miles to the airport from a motel. The pilot had an ATP Certificate, 14,290 hours total flight time and 2,190 hours in the Beech 18 type. A later investigation, source unknown, placed sole blame for the accident on pilot error due to his downwind takeoff into a "black hole".

Croce is buried at Haym Salomon Cemetery in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Muehleisen is buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey.