Travis Barker recalled on Monday’s episode of the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast that he nearly skipped the trip after both he and his daughter Alabama felt uneasy about the 2008 flight.
Nearly two decades after the Blink-182 drummer and DJ AM survived a plane crash that killed the other four people on board, he admitted he nearly skipped out on the flight to spend more time with his and Shanna Moakler’s kids Atiana De La Hoya, 27, Landon Barker, 22, and Alabama Barker, 20.
“I’d said to my manager, ‘Is it too late to just pull out? I don’t really need to do this,'” Barker recalled on the Aug. 10 episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast. “I was just so content with being home with the kiddos, and he’s like, ‘Bro, you can’t cancel this late.’ So, I ended up flying out there.”
Alabama was only 2 years old when she seemingly had a premonition about the tragedy that would unfold on the return flight from his gig.
“I say bye to Bama. She’s young at the time,” Travis shared. “She’s like, ‘Dad, don’t go!’ She’s bawling and she doesn’t usually do that. She’s like, ‘The roof’s gonna come off,’ and I’m like, ‘What is she talking about?'”
Despite his daughter’s haunting words, the musician and pal DJ AM flew to South Carolina to perform with Gavin DeGraw and Jane Addiction singer Perry Farrell.
“I get there, play our show, and then we’re supposed to leave the next morning,” Travis said. “But everyone else that was with me was in a hurry to get home. So, we booked a private plane, super last minute.”
The drummer explained that the speed of the booking prevented his usual pre-flight precautions.
“There’s usually a bunch of hoops to jump through to book me a plane because even back then, without an accident, I was like, ‘Who’s the pilot? Has the plane been maintenanced?'” Barker said. “I want to know everything, and none of that stuff happened.”
“We get to the airport around 11 or midnight. It’s foggy and then there’s one plane in the distance that’s really small.”
His gut feeling intensified immediately.
“I had an awful feeling,” Barker decided to call his dad, who advised him to get on the plane.
“My dad was like, ‘You’re gonna be fine. Just get on the plane. Call me when you get home.'”
Barker boarded despite his misgivings.
“I knew something feels off,” he revealed. “I even told my dad, ‘If something happens to me, please make sure the kids are taken care of.’ I was saying way too much. All the signs were there.”
Now, looking back 18 years later, Barker described how his perspective has shifted.
“Now older me would just say, ‘I think I’m not gonna get on the plane.’ Everything was there and I never felt like that before.”
In the viral moment that emerged in 2008,
Barker and his friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein were performing a concert near the University of South Carolina on Sept. 19, 2008, when they chartered a private jet to and from Los Angeles.
He and Goldstein were on the plane alongside Barker’s assistant Chris “Lil Chris” Baker, his bodyguard Charles “Che” Still, the pilot, Sarah Lemmon, and co-pilot James Bland.
According to the cockpit voice recorder, Lemmon attempted to abort the takeoff; instead, the jet hurtled through airport antennae and then a fence before crossing a five-lane road and finally coming to rest on an embankment 100 ft. from the end of the runway.
Passengers Che Still and Chris Baker died on impact. The two pilots died from smoke inhalation and burns in the minutes after the crash.
Barker suffered third-degree burns on 65 percent of his body. He was hospitalized for three months, undergoing 26 surgeries and multiple skin grafts.
Less than a year later, Goldstein died at age 36 following a drug overdose.
His new documentary “Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear”, will debut August 13 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers in the U.S., and on Disney+ internationally.