‘Obsessive’ Travis Barker set up Google alerts on plane crashes following 2008 accident

"I thought every plane was going to fall out of the fucking sky," says Blink-182 drummer

Travis Barker says he became so paranoid about plane crashes following his own involvement in one that he set up Google alerts to notify him of similar incidents.

Blink-182 drummer Barker suffered second and third degree burns in the accident, which occurred on a flight from South Carolina to California in 2008. Four other passengers were killed in the crash, including Barker’s assistant Chris Barker, two crew members and a security guard. DJ AM survived the flight but died two years later following an accidental overdose.

Barker, 39, spent four months in a burns unit and had to undergo surgery 27 times.

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Speaking to The Guardian, Barker admitted that he went to extreme measures while dealing with the trauma caused by the incident.

“I mean I was crazy,” Barker said. “I couldn’t even look in the sky – I couldn’t look at a plane. I thought every plane was going to fall out of the fucking sky. I became obsessive about it, and slowly grew out of it, but to this day when I see one, it fucks me up.”

Barker also said that he hopes people learn from, and relate to, his experience of post-traumatic stress following the plane crash.

“From the time it happened, people were asking me to talk about it, and I couldn’t. As time went on and I was no longer dealing with post-traumatic and survivor’s guilt and my own injuries,” he said.

“Well, there were two hard things to deal with. First, obviously, being 65 per cent burned. And two, burying two of my best friends and the two pilots I’d just met. It was difficult. And then to have my partner, who survived with me, who was sober and a key factor in my sobriety, pass away of a drug overdose [DJ AM died in 2010]… That was a very traumatic chain of events to go through alone. There’s much more to the book than the plane crash, but that crash and my battle and my demons with post-traumatic is definitely something I think people can learn from and relate to.”

Barker also told NME that Blink-182 have recorded five new songs with Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio, including one titled ‘Punk Rock Cliché’.

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