This has been a story that’s been requested by quite a few people
and it’s one of the most tragic stories in rock n’ roll.
Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads would die in a horrific plane crash on March 19, 1982,
The details of exactly what happened still aren’t clear to this day, but lets talk about what we do
know and some of the theories over what happened that fateful day. Stay tuned for the full story.
Ozzy Osbourne has had to reinvent himself numerous times in his career.
Ozzy first came onto people’s radar as the frontman for metal pioneer’s Black Sabbath, but
along with success came addictions and in-fighting which ultimately led to his firing in 1979.
His dismissal from Back Sabbath led Ozzy to reinvent himself as a solo artist,
something which he had a tremendous amount of success with. That success
wouldn’t have happened had it not been for Ozzy meeting guitarist Randy Rhoads Ozzy’s would tell
A&E “I knew instinctively that he was something extra special referring to Rhoads,” “He was like a
gift from God. Randy and I were like a team” he'd remember. Ozzy’s wife and managerSharon Osbourne
would recall how Randy gave the Prince of Darkness a much needed shot in the arm when it came to his
creativity revealing "As soon as he found Randy, it was like night and day. He was alive again.
Randy was a breath of fresh air, funny, ambitious, just a great guy” she'd say.
Randy’s story began on December 6, 1956, in Burbank, California. The youngest of three, Randy
was surrounded by musical talent as his mother and father were both music teachers. His mother
founded the Musonia Music School, which Rhodes and his two siblings attended. Rhodes was taught by an
instructor at the school named Scott Shelly who at one point went to Randy’s mother and told her that
he could no longer teach her son as Rhoads’ knowledge of guitar had surpassed his own.
By the age of 16 Randy was teaching music at the very school which he attended and he would
also start a band with longtime friend Kevin Garni and recruit singer Kevin Dubrow and drummer Drew
Forsyth. They would call themselves Little Women before changing their name to Quiet Riot. Soon
enough, Quiet Riot became one of the hottest bands on the LA Club scene inking a deal to CBS Records.
Despite the fact that the band was one of the more popular groups in LA at the time, their
label opted to release their first two records in japan only frustrating rhodes. According to
Rhodes CBS Records thought Van Halen already was the so called “LA Band”
and they didn’t think there should be another LA band releasing albums in the states.
Also adding to problems was the deteriorating relationship between the members that
resulted in drunken fistfights and death threats. Frustrated,
Rhoads left the band to pursue other opportunities in 1979. That same year, Ozzy Osbourne was out
of Black Sabbath and in LA attempting to form a band to support his solo career.
An acquaintance of Rhoads’ from the LA club scene , future Slaughter bassist Dana Strum,
got in touch with Rhoads insisting he audition for Ozzy. Rhoads apparently wasn’t a big Ozzy fan,
and he wasn't really interested but he reluctantly agreed to get Strum to stop bothering him.
The day before Ozzy was set to head to England, Rhoads had his audition. The audition would take
place at a studio in Los Angeles. Using a gibson les paul and a practice amp, the guitarist entered
the room and started to warm up. Ozzy was heavily intoxicated that day and according to Rhoads
he never met ozzy during the audition, it was his friend Strum who came out of the control room to
tell him he got the job. Rhoads wouldn’t meet ozzy until the next day when he stopped by his hotel
room in the early hours of the morning. Randywould look back at his audition “I just tuned up and did
some riffs, and he said, ‘You’ve got the gig’; I had the weirdest feeling, because I thought,
‘You didn’t even hear me play yet'”. What’s funny is that ozzy’s management wanted his whole
lineup to be british so the idea of hiring an american like Rhoads seemed out of the question.
Once Ozzy’s manager Don Arden saw Rhoads play, he was blown away.
It wouldn't take long before Randy Rhoads left his mark on Ozzy’s career and the world of rock
playing on the seminal records 1980’s Blizzard of Oz and 1981’s Diary of a Madman.
Readers of Guitar Player Magazine in December of 1981, voted Rhoads the "Best New Talent,"
while readers of Sounds Magazine voted him the "Best Heavy Metal. Here's him accepting one of
the awards as you can see here. And on behalf of over the half a million readers of guitar player
magazine in the US and 70 countries around the world we'd like to present you with the 1981
best new talent award. Congratulations! Thank you! What did Randy have to say? When they told
me ithought they were joing because Sharon always jokes with me anyway and she called
me one day and told me and i just didn't believe it, for a week i still don't believe it you know.
Jackson Guitars even worked with him to create a signature model guitar,
though he was never able to see it hit stores.
Prior to leaving for the States to tour on Diary of a Madman, Ozzy’s manager and wife Sharon would
fire the rhythm section, Shaken by the firing, Rhoads almost quit Ozzy’s band, but opted to stay.
Drummer Tommy Aldridge and bassist Rudy Sarzo –would be hired as Ozzy’s new rhythm section.
According to Sarzo, Rhoads had planned on quitting the band once his contract was over.
The guitarist's desire to leave the band was due to his frustration with Ozzy’s alcohol dependency
and his out of control behavior, which made life on the road unpredictable. Also straining Rhoads
relationship with Ozzy, was that the prince of darkness and his management and label
wanted the band to record a live album of Black Sabbath covers in Toronto Canada.
Rhoads and Aldridge felt they were accomplished musicians and saw a covers album as a slap in
the face And while Rhoads would leave Ozzy’s band he would it wouldn’t be on his own terms.
The Diary of a Madman Tour was a huge success as the band played to sold out venues . Rhoads played
his last show with Ozzy on Thursday, March 18, 1982, at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum.
The following day the band were on their way to Orlando, Florida to play their next gig with the
band foreigner at the Tangerine Bowl. Rhoads never made it to Orlando. Ozzy would recall in
his 2011 book I Am Ozzy the final thing Rhoads said to him, which was a stern warning about
his drinking telling the frontman You'll kill yourself, you know? One of these days.
On their way to Orlando the band would stop in Leesberg Florida to fix a malfunctioning
air conditioning unit at Jerry Calhoun’s Tour Bus Dealership.
In addition to housing Calhoun’s mansion, the sprawling property also housed a private
airfield with helicopters and airplanes, which Calhoun called the Flying Baron Estates airport.
The band had a day off to rest and recuperate and they spent the night on the property.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the band’s bus driver Andrew
Aycock who also knew how to fly plans decided to take a 1955 single-engine Beechcraft F35
plane from the nearby airfield for a spin without Calhoun’s permission.
On the first flight, Aycock took keboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan and attempted
to "buzz" Ozzy's tour bus. Aycock landed and took Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood on the
second flight. Rhoads for his part was afraid of flying and Youngblood had a heart condition,
Ozzy’s tour manager revealed in the book Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in
the Blizzard of Oz how Aycock convinced the pair to come on the plane revealing
"Well, right after we landed Andy came up to me and told me that he was going to take Rachel up
for a ride. And that being aware of her heart condition he assured me that he was just going
to take it easy, circle the property a couple of times and not pull any crazy stunts. So when
Randy heard that, he decided to join them so he could take some aerial shots with his camera."
Rhoads tried to get bassist Rudy Sarzo to join them on the flight but he opted to sleep in.
During the second flight, Ayock tried to buzz the tour bus again. He was able to successfully do it
twice, but the third time would end in tragedy. Around 10 am after flying for five minutes the
aircraft’s wing clipped the top of the bus, spiraling out of control before hitting a tree
shearing the top off and crashing into a garage of Calhoun’s mansion . Rhoads and Youngblood were
ejected from the aircraft through the windshield before the plane exploded into a fireball. All
three passengers were killed instantly and half of Calhoun’s mansion caught fire. While most of the
band and their entourage was sleeping Keyboardist Don Airey was the only member of the band to see
the crash and gave an eye witness account of seeing a struggle in the cockpit between
Rhoads and Ayccok before the plane approached the bus, a mere seconds before the crash.
There’s been a theory floated that Aycock had sinister motives the day of the crash. Toxicology
reports that day showed that Aycock had cocaine in his system, while Rhodes only had nicotine.
Aycock's estranged wife had spent the previous night on the tour bus as Andrew was trying to
possibly reconcile with her. Aycock’s wife was standing besides the tour bus while he was buzzing
it. It was thought by some that as Aycock made his final approach he may have seen his ex-wife and
tried to crash into her. Sarzo believed that given Aycock’s agitated e emotional state that day,
only made worse by the effects of drugs and that he hadn't slept all night, it was
possible he tried to take out his wife. Given the struggle that Don Airey witnessed in the cockpit,
it’s possible that Randy Rhoads actions prevented the aircraft from directly crashing into the bus.
The NTSB investigation determined that Aycock's aviation medical certificate had in fact expired
and that Aycock was the pilot in another fatal crash six years earlier in the United Arab
Emirates. Sharon Osbourne was aware of that prior crash, but hadn't informed anyone else in Ozzy’s
camp about it. In the moments after the crash, Sharon admonished tour manager Duncan for allowing
their people into a plane with a pilot who had been awake and using drugs all night, telling
him "Don't you know that man had already killed one of the Calhoun's kids in a helicopter crash?"
Ozzy and his bandmates had little time to grieve as they had to get back on tour.
Ozzy would look back at how he moved on after the death of Rhodes telling Rolling Stone.
“You never get over something like that. You’re in shock.”
“I said to Sharon, ‘I can’t do this anymore,'” he said. “And she went,
‘If you quit now …’ It was a bad scene, man. She said, ‘We are not stopping now.'”
Within a week and a half Ozzy and company were back out on the road with Irish guitarist
Bernie Torme who had previously played with Deep Purple Singer Ian Galln’s solo band. The gig was
temporary for Torme as he only played 7 shows before Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis came
into the picture. That does it for today's video guys thank for watching. Be sure to hit the like