Peter Frampton’s Missing Guitar Comes Home 31 Years Later

Lost to a plane crash in 1980, Peter Frampton's famous Gibson guitar is now safely back in his hands.

The singer, who played the Gibson Electric Guitar on his 1976 album Frampton Comes Alive!, assumed the instrument had been wrecked in 1980 when a cargo plane crashed in Caracas, Venezuela, en route to Frampton's concert in Panama. As it happened, the guitar was recovered -- and sold to a musician on the Caribbean island of Curacao.

A Dutch Frampton fan is to thank for the reunion.

Lo and behold, eons later, the 1954 Gibson Les Paul -- made of Honduran mahogany -- was back in Frampton's hands last month, following two years of talks with the Curacao musician who owned it, the Times said. Also involved in negotiations: the head of the island’s tourist board, a Dutch Frampton fanatic and a customs agent who moonlights as a guitar repairman.

Peter Frampton Reunites With Missing Guitar 31 Years Later - The Hollywood Reporter.