A fedora in the loo: The most dangerous flight of Led Zeppelin’s career
Some bands are synonymous with the rockstar stereotype, and Led Zeppelin most closely resembles such a way of life. Following the successes of their first two albums, the group enacted a bold creative change with 1970’s Led Zeppelin III. Although it was widely misunderstood upon release, the quartet pushed on, undeterred by the outrage, and swiftly followed it up with 1971’s Led Zeppelin IV. It was their masterpiece, which confirmed them as the biggest and most influential act of the period. The decade then bore unimaginable riches for the members.
There’s no surprise that Led Zeppelin came to embody everything wrong with music for punks and other music fans who had long been sick of the outlandish behaviour inherent to the genre. Typifying this was that Led Zeppelin was so commercially successful that in the 1970s, they rented their own aeroplane, a former United Airlines Boeing 720 refurbished by Bobby Sherman called ‘The Starship’. Featuring a water bed – very of its time – fake fireplace, bar and electric organ, this lavish vehicle cost $2,500 an hour.
This wasn’t the only plane the band rented, and they enjoyed the luxury of many different models in their time. According to frontman Robert Plant, they also rented several shaky planes on their “last legs”. However, in greatly ironic fashion, it was on their plush ‘Starship’ that the band had their most dangerous flight and feared for their lives.
“I remember one time we got on the plane and took off from Dallas to New Orleans,” Plant told Vulture in 2022. “John Bonham was in that period of time where he wore a fedora and a black cane with a silver top. We got up to about 8,000 feet or whatever it was — pretty low.”
Bonham then went to the bathroom but was met with a ghastly surprise, but not the usual sort associated with the space. “He finds it’s time to quickly visit the bathroom,” Plant said. “And as he opened the door, his hat blew off and was sucked down the toilet. There was this great sort of whoosh. The guys that were back down on the airstrip had forgotten to re-screw the chute where the toilets were emptied, so there was a tank underneath the bathroom, and they forgot to put the cap back on. There was absolutely no pressure.”
The group started panicking as they realised they couldn’t fly any higher. Plant recalled that “we all lost our minds” as they knew 8,000 feet was the limit, and their ears started to go, a truly discombobulating experience. Still, their flight continued at 8,000 feet from Dallas all the way to New Orleans.
While movies and other media contain fictional stories that are absolutely hysterical, during his time with Led Zeppelin, Plant experienced many real and outrageous moments, such as the fedora-down-the-toilet instance. It was part and parcel of being in the world’s biggest band in an era when musicians made more money than most people could dream of and had practically every door in life open to them, even the toilet chute.
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