Ozzy Osbourne on ROCK 103 Memphis 4-28-82

The popular Memphis radio morning show Ditch and Jake on legacy station ROCK 103 called today to get to the bottom of the facts regarding one of rock history’s saddest moments. Looking back on the circumstances surrounding my first of many subsequent Ozzy Osbourne interviews with the legendary classic rocker, my remembrance is bittersweet. In April 1982, little more than a month after a plane crash had taken the life of his young & talented guitarist Randy Rhoads on March 19, Ozzy chose my afternoon radio show on Memphis’ #1 station, ROCK 103, to make his first public statements concerning the tragedy. 

In his In The Studio interview marking Ozzy Osbourne’s second solo album Diary of a Madman , Ozzy told the real story of how the light plane stalled and a wing actually clipped the tour bus as the pilot, the band’s tour bus driver, attempted to  take an aerial photo of the  bus with Rhoads & the band’s 58-year old seamstress Rachel on board,  while Ozzy and wife/manager Sharon Osbourne slept in the rear of the tour bus. As tragic as the accident was, ten feet further back at impact and both Ozzy and Sharon would have been killed along with the plane’s three occupants. –Redbeard