Music Plane Crash Victims #4 - Stevie Ray Vaughan

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Technically, Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash, and this is a plane crash countdown, but Vaughan is #4 in my Music Plane Crash Victims series (an idea by @JudyEv) because a helicopter is an aircraft, and, well, because he was Stevie Ray Vaughan. Although Stevie Ray Vaughan had been musically active for years, his mainstream success was fairly short-lived, from the 1983 release of his debut album, Texas Flood, to 1990, when, at the age of 35, a Chicago-bound helicopter carrying him, members of Eric Clapton's staff (agent Bobby Brooks, bodyguard Nigel Browne, assistant tour manager Colin Smythe,) and pilot Jeff Brown, crashed into a ski hill in East Troy, Wisconsin. None survived. Vaughan's helicopter was one of four that took off on a foggy, hazy night with low clouds, all headed to Chicago, lifting off at two-minute intervals. The copter crashed into a 300-foot ski hill, just 50 feet from the summit. Nobody was aware of the crash until the next morning, when it was discovered that the helicopter had failed to arrive in Chicago. Vaughan suffered multiple internal and skull injuries. No drugs or alcohol were involved. A fellow pilot speculated that Brown, a veteran pilot, attempted to fly around the hill but misjudged. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled the crash a "controlled flight into terrain," basically, Brown was unable to see the hill due to poor visibility. Six-time Grammy winner Stevie Ray Vaughan was instrumental in the blues rock revival of the 1980's, and is in the Rock and Roll, Blues, and Musicians Halls of Fame. He has sold over 15 million albums in the United States alone. There's no denying Stevie Ray Vaughan's talent or popularity. Fans bought up 5 1/2 million of his records in the months following his death, and although the results vary depending upon which magazine you're reading, Vaughan regularly ranks in the Top 10 in guitar and music magazine "Best Guitarist" polls. And if you liked the guitar on David Bowie's monster album, Lets Dance, well, that was Stevie Ray Vaughan. (Info verified by Wikipedia)