A man who came into a jet of fire accident said he saw the former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and disc jockey Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein trying to extinguish the flames on their bodies ripping off their clothes ."We look at the jet to try to see if there was something we could do, but immediately there was nothing anyone could do," said William Owens CNN subsidiary WIS in Columbia, South Carolina. "I felt sick or ill to think that these lives have been snuffed out at that time."
The two men were in critical condition with burns Saturday. The accident killed four other people aboard, authorities said.
The Learjet 60 carrying six people, including Barker and Goldstein, was taking off from Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina on Friday evening when he left the track. The aircraft crashed in the light of antenna towers and a table before crossing a road and stopped at an embankment, authorities said.
Owens has discovered the wreckage of the plane while driving and stopped to see if it can help.
Lexington County Coroner Harry O. Harman said all the dead in Friday's accident were Californians.
He identified the pilot as Sarah Lemmon, 31, of Anaheim Hills, co-pilot James Bland, 52, of Carlsbad, Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, and even Charles, 25, of Los Angeles.
The Associated Press reported that Baker was an assistant to Barker and always has been a security guard for the musician.
Owens told WIS-TV, he was driving on Highway 302 when he saw a fireball. Owens and cross arrested on the road, which was doused with fuel, to move closer to the wreckage.
Barker was standing on the road, trying to extinguish the burning his pants, Owens told WIS-TV.
Owens and Goldstein walked to the aircraft but there was nothing they could do to help, he said.
Federal investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the crash site, but said they are not sure that the information on the device survived the fire.
Investigators also obtained recordings of conversations between controllers in the tower and jet two crew members, said the National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Debbie Hersman.
"Air traffic controllers did not see the sparks of the aircraft as it was happening on the runway and immediately alerted the fire rescue crews at the airport," Hersman said Saturday evening in western Colombia .
The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team from the West Colombia to investigate the accident.
The Learjet 60 crashed on takeoff at 11:53 am on Friday.
Beth Frits, spokesman at the Joseph Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia, said Barker and Goldstein arrived at the hospital early Saturday. She said that both men had "extensive burns."
Barker and Goldstein has played a large free outdoor concert in Colombia Five Points district on Friday evening, CNN affiliate WIS-TV said.
Federal Aviation Administration, Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman said the twin-engine private jet was cleared for takeoff on a flight to Van Nuys, California, and began its takeoff few minutes before midnight.
Air traffic controllers "saw sparks coming from the runway - if the aircraft or its engines, we do not know," Bergen said Saturday.
"They invaded the runway 11. They had an impact on the antenna array and a number of light at the end of the runway. They went through the perimeter fence and across the road here, "Hersman said Saturday. "There was a fire following the accident."
The accident closed the airport, which Columbia is the main commercial and passenger terminal, and it remained closed Saturday afternoon late. The airport's website lists nine commercial flights canceled at 7 pm on Saturday.
Hersman said the airport will not reopen until investigators finished collecting debris from the track and venue of the accident.
She said that investigators would look into all aspects of the accident, the drivers' tables of the apparatus of the state. She said it was a relatively new aircraft, manufactured in 2006 and certified for operation in 2007.
In addition to playing with Blink-182, Barker appeared in the MTV reality show "Meet the Barkers" with his wife at the time, former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, according to MTV's Web site.
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