“No Need to Be Alarmed”: The Mid-Flight Near-Disaster Black Sabbath Experienced With Deep Purple on Board

There has always been a macabre connection between air travel and musicians who lost their lives far too soon in tragic plane crashes, stretching across virtually every genre and decade. In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne and his solo outfit joined this unfortunate group when guitarist Randy Rhoads died in a fatal, short-lived flight while on tour. Rhoads, the pilot, and the Osbournes’ makeup artist perished in the crash. The rest of the crew was asleep on the tour bus.

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But nearly a decade earlier, Osbourne found himself in a situation that could have had equally disastrous results with a different band. And this time, he was actually on the plane.

Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Air Travel Didn’t Quite Mix

Stephen Rea, Ozzy Osbourne fanclub member #00090, who later became friends with the Prince of Darkness, recalled the harrowing tale as Osbourne recounted it to him during a November 2025 interview with Classic Rock magazine.

Osbourne set the scene in a way only Ozzy could. Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were traveling back to the U.K. from the 1974 California Jam. “There’s f***ing drinks and drugs everywhere. And, of course, I’m sitting next to Richie Blackmore’s wife, who’s some kind of big fat biker boiler,” Osbourne recalled. “Everyone’s out of their head.”

Before Osbourne knew what was happening, fellow Sabbath bandmates Bill Ward and Geezer Butler became increasingly restless and aggressive. “All this f***ing madness is going on,” Ozzy said. “I just thought, ‘F*** this. I’m going upstairs to the lounge area.”

The Near-Miss Disaster the Musicians Narrowly Avoided

After Ozzy Osbourne took some time to unwind in the upstairs lounge area of the jumbo jet (ah, rockstar life), he returned downstairs to find, as he described it, “the f***ing captain and co-pilot with an axe, chopping down the door to the cockpit.” He continued, “I was like, ‘What the f*** is going on?’ And the captain was like, ‘It’s okay, sir, there’s no need to be alarmed.’ I’m like, ‘We’re twenty thousand feet in the air, we’ve got no pilot, and you’re telling me not to be alarmed?!’”

Apparently, one pilot had left to take a short bathroom break. Meanwhile, the other took a quick walk through first class to speak with the passengers. While both pilots were out of the cockpit, the door shut, locking them out of the control room. The plane was on autopilot “for hours,” Osbourne recalled. “But I said, ‘Listen, you better not let those f***ers downstairs know what’s going on, otherwise we’ll be in big f***ing trouble.’”

And indeed, we can’t imagine Geezer Butler and Bill Ward’s demeanor would have improved much if they had known that no one was actually flying the plane at all. Fortunately for everyone on-board, the harrowing moment passed without incident. A string of good luck Osbourne’s future guitarist, Randy Rhoads, wouldn’t get to have eight years later when the plane he was on went down at a Florida airbase where the Ozzy crew was staying for the night.

Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage