Ozzy Osbourne Coliseum The_Knoxville_News_Sentinel_1982_03_14_100

1982: The day after Ozzy ‘s Knoxville show, the tour bus driver stopped for a break in Florida on the way to the next show. Unbeknownst to Ozzy, who was sleeping off a bad hangover on the bus, woke time, the bus driver (who was also a pilot) decided to borrow a small plane from a nearby airstrip, and buzzed the tour bus. Also on the plane were Ozzy’s guitarist, Randy Rhoads, and Rachel Youngblood, who had handled wardrobe and makeup for the band for years. After several passes, one of the plane’s wings clipped the bus and almost destroyed it. Ozzy woke up believing he was in a dream (or a nightmare) only to discover, in a shocked state, that the plane had also crashed and killed everyone on board. As Ozzy describes in his autobiography, I am Ozzy (2009), just the night before Randy Rhoads told him that he wanted to quit music and go back to college. Ozzy was stunned at the news but hoped Rhoads would change his mind. Apparently, Rhoads and Youngblood both hated flying, so why they even went up in the plane is a tragic mystery.