The pilot of the private jet warned air traffic controllers that his plane was “going off the end” of the runway before it crashed. His words are the last captured on the tape. The pilot, his co-pilot, and two of the musicians’ close friends were killed in the Sept. 19 crash in Columbia, S.C.

“Roll the equipment, we’re going off the end,” pilot James Bland says on the recordings, released Nov. 18.

“We’ve had an emergency, just fly straight ahead,” a controller tells another pilot, who changed course to land at another local airport. Flying over the blaze, the pilot reported back to the tower: “We see it down there. It doesn’t look good.”

Controllers at the Columbia airport can be heard scrambling to divert other planes and summon emergency personnel. Aviation authorities said the recordings showed the jet’s crew thought a tire had blown before takeoff. Those sounds could not be heard in the files released.

The jet shot off the runway, ripped through a fence and came to rest in flames. Barker and DJ AM were severely burned in the crash. The two had performed under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert that night and were headed to Van Nuys, Calif.