Travis Barker is considering air travel again, more than 12 years after surviving a deadly plane crash.
In September 2008, the now-45-year-old Blink-182 drummer, who already had a fear of flying, boarded a private plane in South Carolina to head to the Los Angeles area. The small jet overran the runway and hit an embankment, bursting into flames. Travis and friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein escaped through an emergency exit. They were the only ones to survive the crash and suffered severe burns. The remaining four people, including two more of the drummer’s friends, died.
On Friday, June 25, Travis tweeted, randomly, “I might fly again,” adding a plane emoji.
The rocker has not flown since the crash. He takes buses to get to concerts in North America and has since the accident traveled on cruise ships a few times to join Blink-182 on tour in Europe.
Travis was hospitalized for three months following the crash and treated for third-degree burns on 65 percent of his body. With his body engulfed in flames from burning jet fuel, Travis sprinted across a highway on fire. DJ AM helped put out the flames with the shirt off his own back, Men’s Health reported.
“The plane’s on fire and my hands are on fire so I unbuckle my seat belt and I jump right into the jet, which holds all the fuel. I basically ignite my whole body in fire. I’m so soaked in jet fuel, there’s nothing I can do to put the fire out,” Travis told Good Morning America in 2015. “I’m completely nude at this point…I’m running, grabbing my testicles, my genitals, because, I don’t know why, and then we realize, you know, we’re out of the plane and…the plane explodes.”
Barker underwent 26 surgeries and multiple skin grafts to treat his burns. He remains the sole survivor of the crash. Less than a year later, DJ AM, who also suffered severe burns in the accident, died from a drug overdose at age 36.
Emma McIntyre /AMA2020/Getty Images for dcpTravis also developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after the plane crash, and underwent therapy. In May, the drummer debuted new tattoos that read “Survivor’s” and “Guilt.” That is also the name of a mixtape Wisconsin-based artist KennyHoopla recently released that features Travis.
Also in May, Men’s Health published an interview with Travis, in which he spoke about his lasting trauma, saying that if he “saw a plane [in the sky],” he “was determined it was going to crash.” In his interview, Travis also expressed hope of flying again.
“I have to,” he said. “I want to make the choice to try and overcome it.”
Travis, father to son Landon, 17, and Alabama, 15, and who also helped raise stepdaughter Atiana De La Hoya, 22, also told the magazine, “If I do it, and the angels above help me in my travels and keep me safe, I would like to come back and [tell my children], ‘Hey, I just flew here, and then I flew home. And everything was fine.’ I have to tell them, because I almost left them.”
The rocker added, “That’s a perfect day.”
