The Red Clay Strays experienced a private jet malfunction en route to the 2026 ACM Awards
NEED TO KNOW
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The band previously faced extreme turbulence on a flight to a music festival, sharing the ordeal on Instagram
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The group won Group of the Year at the ACMs and performed their song “Demons in Your Choir”
The Red Clay Strays had a rocky road getting to the2026 ACM Awards.
The musicians said on the red carpet that they “almost died” while en route to the show after their private jet suffered technical difficulties.
The band was asked byYahoo Entertainmenton May 17 what the “most country thing” they'd done that week was, and guitarist Zach Rishel was quick to answer.
“We almost died in that private jet. Part of our engine cowling flew off during takeoff,” he explained.
Bassist Andrew Bishop said the jet circled above Mobile, Ala. for about two hours in order to lose enough fuel to land again and get the band onto a different plane to Las Vegas.
Drummer John Hall then showed a photo of the broken engine, and emphasized that the issue happened “in the air.”
“It was terrifying,” Hall said.
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The Red Clay Strays won Group of the Year at the ACMs, and also performed “Demons in Your Choir.”
The ACMs incident is not the first time the band has had trouble in the skies. In October, they shared video of extreme turbulence on a flight taking them to a country music festival in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the clip, which was shared toInstagram, the frightened band members held on tight as the plane shook due to extreme winds.
At one point, Bishop played the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “That Smell” from his phone, quipping that if the plane was going to go down, “It's gonna go down to Skynyrd.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd was famously involved in a 1977 plane crash in Mississippi that killed six people, including band members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines.
Elsewhere in the video, band members can be heard saying they'll be “drinking to that, boys!” and that someone threw up due to the turbulence.
“Apparently we hit an over 40 degree bank while trying to land in Salt Lake😬 Naturally as we thought the plane was going down, @good_time_andy thought it was a good time to play some Skynyrd,” the group captioned the post. “Seriously though, very thankful to our pilots @james_pruitt56 @pruittjlr45 for their quick-thinking and coolness under pressure. Y'all rock!”
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