Landon Barker Almost Missed Travis And Kourtney’s Wedding In Italy Because He’s “So Afraid Of Flying” After His Dad’s 2008 Plane Crash

Travis went 13 years without stepping foot on a plane after surviving a crash that killed four people and left him requiring 27 surgeries.

In 2008, Travis Barker and his friend and longtime collaborator, Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein, were the only two people to survive after their private jet crashed during takeoff at an airport in South Carolina.

The crash killed four of the six passengers on board, including two of Travis’s close friends — his security guard Charles “Che” Still and assistant Chris Baker — along with both of the pilots.

Recalling the fatal incident during an interview back in 2015, Travis talked about how he was able to escape by opening the plane’s door and sliding down its wing, with DJ AM behind him.

“The plane’s on fire and my hands are on fire so I unbuckle my seat belt and I jump right into the jet, which holds all the fuel,” he said. “I basically ignited my whole body in fire. I'm so soaked in jet fuel, there's nothing I can do to put the fire out.”

Travis was left severely injured as a result, suffering third-degree burns on 65% of his body. He spent 11 weeks in the hospital, where he underwent 27 surgeries, almost losing a foot due to the severity of the burns.

While DJ AM also managed to escape, he died from a prescription drug overdose a year later, making Travis the last remaining survivor of the crash.

After the tragic incident, Travis went more than a decade without stepping foot on a plane, instead using tour buses and cruise ships to travel for his shows across the world.

In May 2021, he talked to Men’s Health about his “haunting” survivor’s guilt, admitting that at one time he couldn’t look up at a plane in the sky without feeling “determined it was going to crash.”

However, he expressed at the time that he hoped to overcome his fear of flying and take to the skies once more — which is exactly what he did with the help of his now-wife, Kourtney Kardashian Barker.

In August 2021, Travis flew on a plane for the first time in 13 years, with Kourtney by his side. He has since credited her for helping him to overcome his fears, telling GQ that “she stuck by me and toughed it out.”

If you follow Kourtney and Travis, you’ll know that that flight was just the first of many for the couple, who’ve since traveled together to a ton of lavish destinations across the globe — including Italy, where they got married last May.

Now, nearly a year after they tied the knot, fans are finally getting an inside look at Kourtney and Travis’s special day in their brand-new Hulu special, titled ‘Til Death Do Us Part, which is packed full of behind-the-scenes footage from all three of their wedding ceremonies.

The special — which dropped yesterday — primarily focuses on Kourtney and Travis’s Italian wedding, showing how the big day came together with all their friends and family in attendance.

At the start of the doc, Kourtney explained that she, Travis, and their respective kids flew to Portofino a few days before the festivities were set to commence so that they could enjoy some time to settle in.

Obviously, the flight from Calabasas, California, to Italy is pretty long, which prompted Travis to talk in the special about how he dealt with the journey, admitting that his trauma still impacts him when he’s traveling.

“As everyone knows, I’m kind of shook just flying anywhere. My plane crashed on takeoff, so takeoffs are terrible for me,” he said. “I’m still equally afraid of flying as I always was, but it’s not something that can hold me back or I can be afraid of anymore. But, yeah. I’m getting better.”

And while Travis’s journey to Italy was fairly straightforward, he revealed that things weren’t quite so simple for his son, Landon, 19, whose fear of flying is so bad that he almost wasn’t able to make it for the wedding.

In the episode we learn that Landon flew out later than his dad and siblings, ultimately catching a ride on Kim Kardashian’s private plane after backing out of two previous flights.

“We didn’t know if Landon was gonna make it because he’s so afraid of flying. I think he walked off two commercial flights,” Travis said, recalling the wedding. “When we saw him, I was so happy.”

When Travis and Landon were eventually reunited on the family’s superyacht, the two sat down together for a debrief, with Landon admitting that “the scariest part was just landing and taking off.”

“You didn’t think I was going to, huh?” Landon asked his dad, prompting Travis to reveal just how close he came to backing out.

“I just wanted to know before I went to sleep if you were gonna make it, you know?” Travis replied. “That’s all. And they kept calling me like, ‘I don’t know if Landon’s gonna get on.’”

If you’re a fan of Travis’s, you might also know that his 17-year-old daughter, Alabama, is equally as afraid of flying after her dad’s crash.

Alabama was only 3 years old at the time of the tragic incident, but Travis recalled that she was “hysterically crying that she didn’t want me to fly that day.”

“She said: ‘The roof is going to come off’ and I was like: ‘What happened? Was there an earthquake this morning? What triggered this?’ She just kept screaming it and crying it,” he remembered.

Like her brother, Alabama developed an intense fear of flying after Travis's accident. However, she managed to overcome the hurdle in November 2021 when she joined her dad on a flight to Mexico, where they celebrated his 46th birthday.

At the time, Travis shared a photo of himself and Alabama on the trip on his Instagram account, where she commented: “Love you the most.” He replied, “Love you more. I’m so proud of you for flying.”

’Til Death Do Us Part is available exclusively now on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, and all-new episodes of The Kardashians Season 3 will launch on May 25 on Hulu and Disney+.

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