MENDOTA- Carol L. Swope, 72, of Mendota passed away Aug. 27, 2017 in Alden Debes Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Rockford....
Two days before the crash that killed him at 26, Redding had recorded the vocals for aching ballad (Sittinâ On) The Dock of the Bay. Four miles outside Madison, Wisconsin, December 10, 1967, hampered by low cloud cover and cold weather, the eight-seater private plane carrying 26-year-old soul star Otis Redding hit trouble.
He was shot down in one jet. He had an engine failure in another jet and it crashed despite his efforts to relight the engine. He crashed into Corpus Cristi Bay...crash cause undetermined. He clipped some power lines in Spain, but plane did not crash. He was in a jet on the USS Forestall that was hit by rocket fired across the flight deck from another jet.