Plane crash survivors, Travis Barker and DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) (the house band for the Video Music Awards’s earlier this month) are expected to make a full recovery, with the help and support of a close network of friends and family. The tragic LearJet 60 plane crash, which National Transportation Safety Board investigators believe was caused by a blown tire on the jet, killed four and left Blink-182 drummer and DJ AM in critical condition. Executive Director at the Joseph Center in Augusta, Ga., Dr. Mullins says that both men are recovering from extensive burns and are facing weeks of hospitalization to treat their injuries.
Mullins states that victims of severe trauma can have a difficult time coping with the after-math. However the encouragement and support the two men are getting from close friends, fans and family will certainly speed up the recovery.
MTV’s news site was quickly flooded with comments from well-wishers who were anxious for updates about the musicians’ conditions. Fans offered comforting words to the victims. One fan says; “I live right outside of Augusta, Georgia, and while I am very upset this had to happen, it couldn’t have happened in a better place. Our burn center is voted the best burn unit in the Southeast, so they are in the best hands.”
On Monday, Barker’s ex-wife, Shanna Moakler, issued a statement thanking everyone for the “outpouring of love and support we have received during this very difficult time.”
Singer Mandy Moore hopped a flight and visited ex-boyfriend Adam Goldstein at the Burn Center the day of the accident, Moore’s manager confirmed to PEOPLE. Barker’s ex-wife, Shanna Moakler, also rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard the news and stayed by his side.
And Lindsay Lohan’s girlfriend, DJ Samantha Ronson sent out a condolence message on her MySpace page to the families of the victims of the crash and good friend DJ AM and Travis Barker.
One of the first responders to a fiery South Carolina plane crash said Wednesday that a pair of musicians escaped the flaming wreckage by sliding down the wing.
"They said the plane went down. They didn't say how or if they knew," said Lt. Jason Shumpert of the South Congaree Police Department. "Once it went down, they were able to slide down the wing of the plane, and they jumped on each other to put fires on each other out and rolled around on the ground."
Shumpert said he didn't know until later that the two badly burned men were former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein. One of their doctors at a Georgia burn hospital said he expects them to fully recover from their second- and third-degree burns.
A video of the Friday night crash scene shot from Shumpert's police car shows an inferno next to the road, with screams ringing out above the din of sirens of ambulances and fire trucks. Shumpert said the screaming voice belonged to Barker, who was trembling and seemed to be in intense pain as he sat on the sidewalk, waiting for medical help to arrive.
"Travis, you could tell he was in pain," Shumpert said. "He just kept saying: 'That's my friends in the plane, that's my friends in the plane.'"
Pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, of Anaheim Hills, Calif., and co-pilot James Bland, 52, of Carlsbad, Calif., died of smoke inhalation and burns within minutes of the crash. A South Carolina coroner has said Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, Calif., and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles, close friends of the musicians, died on impact.
Barker, 32, was one of the more colorful members of the multiplatinum-selling punk rock band Blink-182. DJ AM is a popular DJ who was also a tabloid favorite for some celebrity romances.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board have not said what caused the crash. A cockpit voice recorder revealed that crew members thought a tire blew and tried to abort the takeoff. The Learjet shot off the end of the runway, ripped through a fence and crossed a highway before coming to rest, engulfed in flames.
NTSB officials, who have recovered pieces of tire from the runway, planned to return to Washington on Thursday. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which made the tires, has said it is cooperating with the investigation.
A spokesman for a clothing company Barker owns said Tuesday the drummer had been through several surgeries and was trying to keep an upbeat attitude. Regardless of what caused the crash, Shumpert said both men are lucky to be alive.
"It was divine intervention that they got out," he said. "They should be commended for being able to get out and keep their heads together."
Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Adam Goldstein, known as celebrity DJ AM, were critically injured in a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four Southern Californians, including Barker's bodyguard and his personal assistant, authorities said.
The pilot, Sarah Lemmon of Anaheim Hills, and copilot, James Bland of Carlsbad, were also killed, according to the Lexington County coroner.
The Learjet was taking off shortly before midnight Friday with six people aboard, when air traffic controllers saw sparks. The plane, which was en route to Van Nuys Airport, veered off the end of the runway, rolled through a fence and crashed on a nearby road, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. Barker and Goldstein were in critical condition at a burn center in Augusta, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of Columbia, hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits said.
Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles -- both members of Baker's entourage -- were among the dead.
According to music industry sources, Charles "Shea" Still was a longtime friend of Barker's and would sometimes work as a bodyguard when the star drummer performed in small shows. Barker and Goldstein had performed together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night.
Baker, nicknamed "Little Chris," worked as a personal assistant to Barker and had appeared sometimes on the MTV show "Meet the Barkers" the MTV domestic-life reality show that aired in 2005 and 2006.
Michael Creger, a friend of Still, said the bodyguard's family was reeling from the news. They were upset, too, that early media reports of the accident focused on the injured Barker instead of the dead passengers.
Creger said that Still's family had thought the group in South Carolina would be returning home on a commercial flight, but that travel plans changed. Creger said the brawny, athletic Still was "a gentle giant" who had aspired to a pro baseball career before finding a different career path with his backstage work. He was "huge music fan" who, with his tattoos and stature, was an imposing figure to strangers. His friends, however, knew him to be more like the tattoo across his torso: "Mama's Boy," Creger said.
"His mother in Riverside is just devastated by this because Shea's dad died not long ago also," Creger said.
At the crash site today, the air was still heavy with the odor of jet fuel. A trail of black soot led off a runway, across a five-lane road next to the airport and up an embankment. The nose of the aircraft was gone and the roof was missing from two-thirds of the charred plane.
An investigative team from the National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched to South Carolina.
"It's absolutely terrible and tragic," Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said.
Got confirmation on Global Executive Aviation as the aircraft operator. Based out of Long Beach.
The plane is owned by Global Exec Aviation, a Long Beach-based charter company, and was certified to operate last year, an NTSB official said.
Mark Shater, spokesman for the charter company, declined to comment on the crash or the pilots. He said Global is sending a management team to South Carolina to cooperate with the FAA and the NTSB.
Barker and Goldstein's Friday show, which included performances by former Jane's Addiction singer Perry Ferrell and singer Gavin DeGraw, drew 10,000 people into the streets of Five Points, the neighborhood near the University of South Carolina, Coble said.
Neither Ferrell nor DeGraw was on the plane, their representatives told AP on Saturday.
Barker is one of the more famous faces to rise up in the Southern California pop-punk scene and, unlike many drummers who are fairly anonymous figures at the rear of the stage, he parlayed his popularity into television roles, advertising appearances and varied business ventures.
The 33-year-old Fontana native came to fame as the drummer in the platinum-selling San Diego County band Blink-182, one of the top U.S. bands at the beginning of this decade.
After Blink broke up, Barker went on to play with other rock bands such as +44, the Transplants and Box Car Racer, but he also established himself a musical chameleon, working with hip-hop acts such as Busta Rhymes, the Game, the Black Eyed Peas and the Oscar-winning group Three 6 Mafia.
Barker and then-wife Shanna Moakler, a former Miss USA, were in front of the cameras along with their three children for "Meet the Barkers," the MTV domestic-life reality show that aired in 2005 and part of 2006. The rock star also appeared in the 1999 hit film "American Pie, and his television appearances include "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "The Simpsons," "MAD TV" and "MTV Cribs."
The tattoo-covered Barker, who often pops up in the gossip pages for his liaisons with celebrities, among them Paris Hilton, was also the subject of a popular 2006 Boost Mobile television commercial that has been viewed more than 800,000 times on YouTube.
Nine years ago, he launched a clothing line called Famous Stars and Straps, which opened a flagship store called the Fast Life near the intersection of 3rd and Crescent Heights. Some fans were stopping by Saturday to ask about the condition of the star, his associates and the crew.
Barker performed at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards with Goldstein, who goes by the stage moniker DJ AM. Goldstein was formerly in the band "Crazy Town" but today may be best known for his romances -- he was engaged for a time to "The Simple Life" star Nicole Richie and also had relationships with singer Mandy Moore and Canadian model Jessica Stam.
He is also the owner of popular Hollywood nightclub LAX, which has been a major spot in the celebrity circuit since its opening in 2005.
Plane crash survivors, Travis Barker and DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) (the house band for the Video Music Awards’s earlier this month) are expected to make a full recovery, with the help and support of a close network of friends and family.
The tragic LearJet 60 plane crash, which National Transportation Safety Board investigators believe was caused by a blown tire on the jet, killed four and left Blink-182 drummer and DJ AM in critical condition. Executive Director at the Joseph Center in Augusta, Ga., Dr. Mullins says that both men are recovering from extensive burns and are facing weeks of hospitalization to treat their injuries. 
