Seat Cushion and Silence: The Unsolved Crash That Killed Otis Redding

Aviation Survival Stories · Oct 14, 2026 · 17m

Seat Cushion and Silence: The Unsolved Crash That Killed Otis Redding

A seat cushion floated in Lake Monona while a man who could not swim surfaced after a plane vanished beneath him-seven people were lost on December 10, 1967, including a twenty-six-year-old who had just recorded a song that would become number one. How did a surviving cushion, a surgeon's removed polyps, and a disputed final song become the last traces of Otis Redding's life?

In this episode, we follow the sequence of events that led from a Stax recording session and a larynx operation to a fatal afternoon near Truax Field…