Reba McEntire understands what it’s like to endure sorrow and loss. In 1991, the country superstar lost seven members of her band and her tour manager in an aircraft incident during a concert.
Reba McEntire is reflecting on the loss of her bandmates, 33 years after that sad day.
On Saturday, the country star, 68, shared an Instagram post that memorialized her late band and crew members who left this life forever in a plane c”rash after her concert in San Diego in March 1991.
“I guess the world ain’t gonna stop… for my broken heart,” wrote McEntire, quoting her song “For My Broken Heart,” released on an album of the same name later that year. In the post, she also featured a list of the late bandmates: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Tony Saputo and Michael Thomas.
“33 years today since Heaven gained some great angels,” she wrote in the caption alongside the post. “Rest in peace, my friends.”
Reportedly, the jet’s wing clipped a rock and crashed into a mountain near the United States–Mexico border. McEntire, her stylist and her then-husband and manager Narvel Blackstock were set to leave San Diego the next day on a different flight.
“She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years,” a rep for McEntire told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “Reba is totally devastated by this. It’s like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville.”
McEntire has reflected on the incident often in the decades since her band members left her forever for another world.
