Travis Barker's Heart-Wrenching Confession After Surviving Tragic Plane Crash
Travis Barker broke down in tears as he recalled surviving the 2008 plane crash that claimed the lives of his two friends. On September 19, 2008, the private jet he was travelling on blew out a tire and burst into flames, with the Learjet 60 smashing through the fence of the South Carolina airport, careering across a highway before ultimately exploding.Along with the two pilots, Travis' personal assistant Chris Baker and bodyguard Che Still, were both killed.The only other survivor was Travis' close friend and collaborator Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein, who subsequently died in August 2009 of a drug overdose – a combination of cocaine and the drugs prescribed to him for dealing with the crash.Travis reflected on the devastating tragedy in his new Hulu/Disney+ documentary, Louder Than Fear, revealing that he was suicidal after the accident and begged his friends to kill him while he was in hospital recovering from the crash. During the explosion, Travis was badly injured, with 65 per cent of his body covered in third degree burns, all of his ribs broken and his back fractured in four places. Travis Barker broke down in tears on his new Hulu/Disney+ documentary, Louder Than Fear, as he recalled surviving the 2008 plane crash that claimed the lives of his two friends On September 19, 2008, the private jet he was travelling on blew out a tire and burst into flames, with the Learjet 60 careering across a highway before ultimately explodingTravis recalled: 'I couldn't see my kids because 65 percent of my body was an open wound. I was handling that miserably. 'I was suicidal in the hospital and I was there for another three and half months and had 27 surgeries,' he revealed, confessing he promised friends that he would transfer them any money they wanted if they would put him out of his misery. Travis also broke down as he recalled the conversation he had with his father before boarding the flight, having had a bad feeling about the small plane they had chartered. 'I said, "if something happens make sure everything's cool with the kids,"' Travis recalled. 'That was definitely emotional for whatever reason. I just said "I have a weird feeling."' He also explained how he escaped the doomed jet, revealing he had nearly fallen asleep before takeoff after taking a cocktail of drugs and alcohol but thankfully he was still awake when the plane moved. Travis, a lifelong nervous flier, revealed he was sat by the emergency exit as he always did when he heard 'loud, gunshot-like noises'. He recalled: 'I feel it getting very rough, I guess at this point the landing gear had blown up. The belly of the plane is basically on the ground skidding and it catches fire.'The plane attempted to take off and go into the air, and then we'd go down, go into the air, go down and we end up hitting an embankment. Just fire and chaos everywhere.'AM was knocked out, he'd hit his head, so I grabbed him and I shook him and he woke up, tried to get in front of him and the lower parts of my arms caught fire.'I opened the emergency exit and jumped out right into the jet where all the fuel is, then my whole body caught fire. 'I'm running and the fire won't go out, I stop, drop and roll and AM came out and he patted my feet off fire. 10 seconds later the plane blows up.' Along with the two pilots, Travis' personal assistant Chris Baker and bodyguard Che Still, were both killed in the explosion The only other survivor was Travis' close friend and collaborator Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein, who subsequently died in August 2009 of a drug overdose – a combination of cocaine and the drugs prescribed to him for dealing with the crash (pictured together in 2008) Travis vowed to never fly again after the accident and was left in shock when AM was able to board a flight just a couple of weeks later after being treated for minor burns. It was revealed that AM had begun relying on drugs to cope with the trauma, before dying from an accidental overdose 11 months after the crash. Travis said: 'After AM passed it was beyond difficult to relate to anybody. I really had no one, I would exhaust post-traumatic doctors and I would hit walls constantly.'I definitely had feelings of survivor guilt, I was beating myself up, why am I here and everyone else isn't? I had to believe I was still here for a reason.' Travis credited his children, Landon and Alabama and stepdaughter Atiana, who he shares with ex-wife Shanna Moakler, with keeping him on track. 'My kids really kept me together,' he revealed. 'It was the best thing for my recovery and to give me strength. I flushed my painkillers down the toilet - I was not going to fail my kids.' Travis' accident also brought him closer to his father, Randy, who he had a turbulent relationship with in his childhood. His mother Gloria died when he was 13 following a battle with Sjögren's syndrome, a systemic autoimmune disease.In the documentary, which was filmed over a nine-year period, Travis explained that losing his mother had made him question his Catholic faith. He recalled: 'I was confused, angry. It made me question God and religion and everything I'd been brought up on. Why would God do something so f***ed up? 'My pops wasn't in a place to discuss it because he was also grieving.' Travis credited his children, Landon and Alabama and stepdaughter Atiana, who he shares with ex-wife Shanna Moakler, with keeping him on trackTravis' accident also brought him closer to his father, Randy, who he had a turbulent relationship with in his childhoodElsewhere in the documentary, Travis discussed his relationship with wife Kourtney Kardashian, who he started dating in 2020 after years of friendship (pictured in 2022) Travis revealed that his relationship with his father was already fractured, as it emerged shortly before his mother's death that his dad had a mistress. 'He was spending a lot of time with her then coming back and staying with us when we needed him,' Travis shared. 'I resented him for the obvious reasons. There wasn't one stable foundation to go to.'I bottled up all my pain and put it into drums. Drums were my therapy. The last thing my mum said to me was "just focus on your music, become a drummer."' Elsewhere in the documentary, Travis discussed his relationship with wife Kourtney Kardashian, who he started dating in 2020 after years of friendship. 'Just by our interactions as friends, by looking in her eyes, I knew she was The One,' Travis recalled. 'It felt like I had superpowers, like I was a kid all over again.' The Blink-182 star revealed he fell 'madly in love' with Kourtney and they felt blessed when they learned she had fallen pregnant in the early stages of their romance. Travis and Kourtney learnt they were expecting a baby girl and told their friends and loved ones before a three-month scan revealed the tragic news that their baby no longer had a heartbeat. Kourtney, who revealed they were going to name their daughter Tulip, said in the documentary: 'When we lost the baby, we were devastated. We cried for days.'The couple went on to welcome son Rocky in 2023 after undergoing IVF. Explaining why they decided to speak out about their baby loss, Travis told PEOPLE: 'I think when there's things that can benefit people or help people like relate to something, I think that's always like a green light, especially she's always trying to do something like that.'Our journey of miscarriages and then IVF and it's like failed, resulting in us having a baby naturally, like I feel like that's a story a million people can relate to.' For confidential emotional support in the UK call Samaritans on 116 123 or visit samaritans.orgIn the US call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear is out now on Hulu and Disney+ Blink-182's Travis Barker almost died. A new documentary celebrates his life before and after The inferno rages onscreen three minutes into ' Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear.' Dashcam footage lifted from a police car shows the blaze: It's 2008, and Barker has survived a plane crash in South Carolina. Four others did not.And then, a cut. The documentary, which follows the Blink-182 drummer from 2017 to 2026, is a celebration of Barker's life before and after the life-altering accident, a central event in a career full of them. The film began as a mirror of his memoir, 2015's 'Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums,' but became something else entirely after a producer suggested it end with the image of Barker, then still unable to fly due to post-traumatic stress disorder, walking toward a plane.Ending on that note, 'where this thing still has power over me', didn't sit well with him. Instead, he boards a plane at the end but the documentary's final images are a slide show of family photos, including his wife Kourtney Kardashian and kids.'I almost died,' he says. It 'could be helpful to share my life'.Barker's resume is long, and a two-and-a-half-hour documentary can only cover so much of it. The film hits most of the big notes, quickly establishing Barker as a rebellious kid with a supernatural drumming ability from age four, when he got his first kit, to now, at 50.And that's with many projects in-between: From the SoCal punks Feeble, which he joined while working as a trash collector, to his stint in the ska band The Aquabats and multiplatinum, pop-punk legends Blink-182 – the band that skyrocketed Barker into superstardom.Also covered? His love of skateboarding and car culture, his clothing brands, side-projects Box Car Racer and +44, turntable duo TRV$DJAM, various experiments and collaborations in hip-hop (Bun B, Lil Wayne ) and beyond.But it all began with drumming, and hilariously enough, Animal from 'The Muppets' – his first drumming hero – until he discovered cross-genre greats like jazz legends Buddy Rich, Dennis Chambers and Elvin Jones as well as Mötley Crüe´s Tommy Lee.'Where drumming got really serious for me was after my mom passed, so it was therapy,' he says, reflecting on his childhood. 'It´s like my life. It´s like oxygen to me.'It's also a kind of sport. Barker has long been a dedicated, athletic percussionist, and he likens it to a boxer's meditative state. 'It´s like when you see a fighter and he just goes for broke the first round. There´s sometimes where I just feel like that,' he says. 'Something just takes over my body.'Travis poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)Many events in life threatened that euphoria, but none quite as physically as the plane crash. 'I was in a burn center for six months on morphine and I had 30 surgeries,' he recounts. 'Seventy percent of my body was burned.' At one point, he didn't only fear if he would be able to drum again – even walking was a question mark.Even before the crash, Barker's life – as marked with musical triumphs as it has been – offered lessons in resilience.'Whether it was my mom passing away or my plane crash, I learned - and through watching friends of mine and just living life - I´ve seen traumatic experiences either destroy someone or define them,' he says. 'Every loss I had, or every everything I took to the chin, it made me stronger. At the time, I can´t realize it, right? I can't like really wrap my head around it. But ... that´s why I went so hard and I was so determined to play music and so determined to succeed. Plan B was only making Plan A work. You know? There was no Plan B.'The same tenacity can be applied to his sobriety and dedication to flying again – a journey emboldened by his family. 'I fly all the time now and I feel turbulence and I can´t even tell you what´s going on in my head. And I just look over and my wife´s perfectly OK,' he says. 'My son loves airplanes and plays with airplanes and it´s so innocent. It´s so beautiful.''They´ve been my greatest joy,' he says of his children, who grew up on screen across the film's near-decade of filming.As someone who has lost a lot and thought about what it would be like to lose even more, when it comes to the topic of legacy, Barker has a simple dream. 'I think I´d want to be remembered for my music and my drumming and being a great father, husband, and son and brother,' he says.As for the doc? 'Maybe my story helps somebody,' he pauses. 'I don´t love how everything happened. I don´t like the losses that happened. But I like how hard I had to work. I like that I wasn´t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I liked that I had to navigate and find my way. And the journey was awesome.'
