Success in country music can seem like a fairytale, but it doesn’t always end up happily ever after. These country stars shocked fans when they died in very tragic ways that nobody expected.

The most tragic deaths in country music include a surprisingly large number of plane crashes; in fact, one of the takeaways is, if you’re going to tour using a plane, make sure it’s not a tiny twin-engine jet, as that scenario has proven fatal for quite a few country legends over the years.

You also might want to make sure you have enough fuel in the plane.

Drugs and alcohol are also contributing factors to some of the most shocking deaths in country music — perhaps not surprisingly, for a genre that so often walks hand-in-hand with glorifying partying.

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Car crashes and even a few horrifying murders are also among the factors that caused country singers’ most shocking deaths, and sadly, several of the stars in this list also died by suicide, including two all-time icons.

Scroll through the galleries below to see the most shocking and tragic deaths in country music history.