On February 3, 1959, American
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
musicians
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas ...
,
Ritchie Valens
Richard Steven Valenzuela (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Ritchie Valens, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens was killed i ...
, and
"The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson were all killed in a plane crash near
Clear Lake, Iowa
Clear Lake is a city in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,687 at the 2020 census. The city is named for the large lake on which it is located. It is the home of a number of marinas, state parks and tourism-related ...
, together with pilot Roger Peterson.
The event later became known as "The Day the Music Died" after singer-songwriter
Don McLean
Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1971 hit song " American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early ...
referred to it as such in his 1971 song "
American Pie".
At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music.
Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...
,
Tommy Allsup
Thomas Douglas Allsup (November 24, 1931 – January 11, 2017) was an American rockabilly and swing musician.
Personal life
Allsup was born near Owasso, Oklahoma in 1931, and was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. Allsup had a son, ...
, and
Carl Bunch
Carl H. Bunch (November 24, 1939 – March 26, 2011) was an American musician.
Carl Bunch was born in Big Spring, Texas and began playing drums as a teenager while recovering from extensive surgery on his right leg. By age seventeen, he was rec ...
, were playing on the "Winter Dance Party"
tour
Tour or Tours may refer to:
Travel
* Tourism, travel for pleasure
* Tour of duty, a period of time spent in military service
* Campus tour, a journey through a college or university's campus
* Guided tour, a journey through a location, directed b ...
across the
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
. Rising artists Valens, Richardson, and vocal group
Dion and the Belmonts
Dion and the Belmonts were an American vocal trio prominent throughout the 1950s. All of its members were from the Bronx, New York City. In 1957, Dion DiMucci joined the vocal group the Belmonts. The established trio of Angelo D'Aleo, Carlo M ...
had joined the tour as well. The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of
flu
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...
and even
frostbite
Frostbite is a skin injury that occurs when exposed to extreme low temperatures, causing the freezing of the skin or other tissues, commonly affecting the fingers, toes, nose, ears, cheeks and chin areas. Most often, frostbite occurs in the han ...
.
After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by the conditions on the tour buses, Holly chose to charter a plane to reach their next venue in
Moorhead,
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
. Richardson, suffering from flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a
coin toss
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...
. Soon after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a
Beechcraft Bonanza
The Beechcraft Bonanza is an American general aviation aircraft introduced in 1947 by Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. The six-seater, single-engined aircraft is still being produced by Beechcraft and has been in continuous prod ...
, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield, killing all four on board.
The event has since been mentioned in several songs and films. Various monuments have been erected at the crash site and in Clear Lake, where an annual memorial concert is also held at the
Surf Ballroom
The Surf Ballroom (also called the Surf) is a Historic Rock and Roll Landmark at 460 North Shore Drive, Clear Lake, Iowa, United States. The Surf is closely associated with the event known colloquially as "The Day the Music Died" – early rock ...
, the venue that hosted the artists' last performances.
Background
In November 1958,
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas ...
terminated his association with
The Crickets
The Crickets were an American rock and roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer-songwriter Buddy Holly in January 1957. Their first hit record, "That'll Be the Day", released in May 1957, peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, ...
. According to
Paul Anka
Paul Albert Anka (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter and actor. He is best known for his signature hit songs including " Diana", " Lonely Boy", "Put Your Head on My Shoulder", and " (You're) Having My Baby". Anka also ...
, Holly realized he needed to go back on
tour
Tour or Tours may refer to:
Travel
* Tourism, travel for pleasure
* Tour of duty, a period of time spent in military service
* Campus tour, a journey through a college or university's campus
* Guided tour, a journey through a location, directed b ...
again for two reasons: he needed cash because the Crickets' manager
Norman Petty
Norman Petty (May 25, 1927 – August 15, 1984) was an American musician, record producer, publisher, radio station owner, and considered to be one of the founding fathers of early rock & roll.
Biography
Petty was born in the small town of Clo ...
had apparently stolen money from him, and he wanted to raise funds to move to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to live with his new wife,
María Elena Holly
María Elena Holly (née Santiago; born December 20, 1932) is the widow of American rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly. As a receptionist at Peermusic, she met with Holly and his band the Crickets on June 19, 1958, and Holly proposed to her after ...
, who was pregnant.
Holly signed up with
General Artists Corporation
General Amusement Corporation (GAC) was an international talent booking agency that was acquired by ICM Partners in 1974. In the 1940s, GAC's name was changed to General Artists Corporation to avoid confusion with a registered coin-machine company ...
(GAC) because "he knew they were planning a British tour and he wanted to be in on that".
For the start of the "Winter Dance Party" tour, Holly assembled a band consisting of
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music.
Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...
(bass),
Tommy Allsup
Thomas Douglas Allsup (November 24, 1931 – January 11, 2017) was an American rockabilly and swing musician.
Personal life
Allsup was born near Owasso, Oklahoma in 1931, and was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. Allsup had a son, ...
(guitar), and
Carl Bunch
Carl H. Bunch (November 24, 1939 – March 26, 2011) was an American musician.
Carl Bunch was born in Big Spring, Texas and began playing drums as a teenager while recovering from extensive surgery on his right leg. By age seventeen, he was rec ...
(drums), with the opening vocals of
Frankie Sardo
Frank Sardo Avianca (September 16, 1936 – February 26, 2014), who performed as Frankie Sardo, was an American rock and roll singer, actor and film producer.
Life
He was born Frank Marco Sardo on September 16, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York, int ...
. The tour was set to cover twenty-four
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
ern cities in as many daysthere were no off days. New hit artist
Ritchie Valens
Richard Steven Valenzuela (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Ritchie Valens, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens was killed i ...
,
"The Big Bopper" J. P. Richardson, and the vocal group
Dion and the Belmonts
Dion and the Belmonts were an American vocal trio prominent throughout the 1950s. All of its members were from the Bronx, New York City. In 1957, Dion DiMucci joined the vocal group the Belmonts. The established trio of Angelo D'Aleo, Carlo M ...
joined the tour to promote their recordings and make an extra profit.
![Winter Dance Party Tour Schedule, 1959](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Winter_Dance_Party_Tour_Schedule%2C_1959.svg)
The 1959 tour began in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, on January 23, with the performance in
Clear Lake,
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
, on February 2 being the eleventh of the twenty-four scheduled events. The amount of travel required soon became a serious problem. The distances between venues had not been properly considered when the performances were scheduled. Instead of systematically circling around the Midwest through a series of venues in close proximity to one another, the tour erratically zigzagged back and forth across the region, with distances between some tour stops exceeding . As there were no off days, the bands had to travel most of each day, frequently for ten to twelve hours in freezing mid-winter temperatures. Most of the
Interstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
had not yet been built, so the routes between tour stops required far more driving time on narrow two-lane rural highways than on modern expressways.
GAC
GAC or Gac may refer to:
Companies and organisations
* GAC Group, a Chinese automotive company based in Guangzhou, Guangdong
* GAC Ireland, an Irish bus manufacturer established with Bombardier (1980–1986)
* Games Administration Committee, a ...
-Super Productions, the organization that booked the tour, later received considerable criticism for their seemingly total disregard for the conditions they forced the touring musicians to endure:
The entire company of musicians traveled together in one bus, although the buses used for the tour were wholly inadequate, breaking down and being replaced frequently. Griggs estimates that five separate buses were used in the first eleven days of the tour—"reconditioned school buses, not good enough for school kids".
The artists themselves were responsible for loading and unloading equipment at each stop, as no
road crew
The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians. This catc ...
assisted them. Adding to the disarray, the buses were not equipped for the harsh weather, which consisted of waist-deep snow in several areas and varying temperatures from to as low as . One bus had a heating system that malfunctioned shortly after the tour began, in
Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh)
is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...
.
Later, Richardson and Valens began experiencing
flu
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...
-like symptoms and drummer Bunch was hospitalized for severely
frostbitten feet after the tour bus stalled in the middle of the highway in subzero temperatures near
Ironwood
Ironwood is a common name for many woods or plants that have a reputation for hardness, or specifically a wood density that is heavier than water (approximately 1000 kg/m3, or 62 pounds per cubic foot), although usage of the name ironwood in E ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. The musicians replaced that bus with another school bus and kept traveling. As Holly's group had been the backing band for all of the acts, Holly, Valens and DiMucci took turns playing drums for each other at the performances in
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...
, and Clear Lake, Iowa, with Holly playing drums for Dion, Dion playing drums for Ritchie, and Ritchie playing drums for Holly.
On Monday, February 2, the tour arrived in Clear Lake, west of
Mason City, having driven from the previous day's concert in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The town in northern Iowa had not been a scheduled stop; tour promoters hoped to fill the open date and called the manager of the local
Surf Ballroom
The Surf Ballroom (also called the Surf) is a Historic Rock and Roll Landmark at 460 North Shore Drive, Clear Lake, Iowa, United States. The Surf is closely associated with the event known colloquially as "The Day the Music Died" – early rock ...
, Carroll Anderson (1920–2006), and offered him the show. Anderson accepted and they set the show for that night. By the time Holly arrived at the venue that evening, he was frustrated with the ongoing problems with the bus. The next scheduled destination after Clear Lake was
Moorhead,
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, a drive north-northwest—and, as a reflection of the poor quality of the tour planning, a journey that would have taken them directly back through the two towns they had already played within the last week. No let-up after that was in sight, as the following day after having traveled from Iowa to Minnesota, they were scheduled to travel right back to Iowa, specifically almost directly south to
Sioux City
Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...
, a trip.
Holly chartered a plane to fly himself and his band to
Fargo,
North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...
, which is adjacent to Moorhead. The rest of the party would have picked him up in Moorhead, saving him the journey in the bus and leaving him time to get some rest. Their gig in Moorhead was to have been a radio performance at the station
KFGO KFGO may refer to:
* KFGO (AM), a radio station (790 AM) licensed to Fargo, North Dakota, U.S.
* KFGO-FM, a radio station (104.7 FM) licensed to Hope, North Dakota, U.S.
* KRWK, a radio station (101.9 FM) licensed to Fargo, North Dakota, prev ...
with
disk jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...
Charlie Boone.
Flight arrangements
![Beech 35 N3188V Jan1949 (11124699236)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Beech_35_N3188V_Jan1949_%2811124699236%29.jpg)
Anderson called Hubert Jerry Dwyer (1930–2016), owner of the Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, to charter the plane to fly to Fargo's
Hector Airport, the closest one to Moorhead. Flight arrangements were made with Roger Peterson, a 21-year-old local pilot described as a "young married man who built his life around flying".
The flying service charged a fee of $36 per passenger for the flight on the 1947 single-engined, V-tailed
Beechcraft 35 Bonanza (
registration
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), th ...
), which seated three passengers and the pilot. A popular misconception, originating from
Don McLean
Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1971 hit song " American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early ...
's
song about the crash, was that the plane was called ''American Pie''; no record exists of any name ever having been given to N3794N.
The most widely accepted version of events was that Richardson had contracted
the flu during the tour and asked Jennings for his seat on the plane. When Holly learned that Jennings was not going to fly, he said in jest: "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings responded: "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes", a humorous but ill-fated response that haunted him for the rest of his life. Valens, who once had a
fear of flying
Fear of flying is a fear of being on an airplane, or other flying vehicle, such as a helicopter, while in flight. It is also referred to as flying anxiety, flying phobia, flight phobia, aviophobia, aerophobia, or pteromechanophobia (although ae ...
, asked Allsup for his seat on the plane. The two agreed to
toss a coin to decide. Bob Hale, a disc jockey with Mason City's
KRIB-AM, was
emceeing the concert that night and flipped the coin in the ballroom's side-stage room shortly before the musicians departed for the airport. Valens won the coin toss for the seat on the flight. Valens is apocryphally said to have remarked, "That's the first time I've ever won anything in my life."
In contradiction to the testimony of Allsup and Jennings, Dion has since said that Holly approached him along with Valens and Richardson to join the flight, not Holly's bandmates. In a 2009 interview, Dion said that Holly called him, Valens, and Richardson into a vacant dressing room during Sardo's performance and said, "I've chartered a plane, we're the guys making the money
e should be the ones flying ahead..the only problem is there are only two available seats." According to Dion, it was Valens, not Richardson, who had fallen ill, so Valens and Dion flipped a coin for the seat. In his interview, no mention is made of Jennings or Allsup being invited on the plane. Dion said he won the toss, but ultimately decided that since the $36 fare (equivalent to $ in ) equaled the monthly rent his parents paid for his childhood apartment, he could not justify the indulgence.
Take-off and crash
![Mason City and Clear Lake, Iowa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Mason_City_and_Clear_Lake%2C_Iowa.svg)
After the show ended, Anderson drove Holly, Valens, and Richardson to nearby
Mason City Municipal Airport
Mason City Municipal Airport is located six miles west of downtown Mason City, in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. It is in the northern part of Lake Township, just east of the city of Clear Lake. It is used for general aviation and ...
, where the
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...
is
AMSL
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
. The weather at the time of departure was reported as light snow, a
ceiling
A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a story above. Ceilings ...
of AMSL with sky obscured, visibility , and winds from . Although deteriorating weather was reported along the planned route, the weather briefings Peterson received failed to relay the information.
The plane took off normally from runway 17 (today's runway 18) at 12:55 am
CST on Tuesday, February 3. Dwyer witnessed the southbound take-off from a platform outside the
control tower
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...
. He was able to clearly see the aircraft's tail light for most of the brief flight, which started with an initial 180 degree left turn to pass east of the airport, climbing to approximately
AGL. After an additional left turn to a northwesterly heading, the tail light was then observed gradually descending until it disappeared. Around 1:00 am, when Peterson failed to make the expected radio contact, repeated attempts to establish communication were made, at Dwyer's request, by the radio operator, but they were all unsuccessful.
Later that morning, Dwyer, having heard no word from Peterson since his departure, took off in another airplane to retrace Peterson's planned route. Within minutes, at around 9:35 am, he spotted the wreckage less than northwest of the airport.
The sheriff's office, alerted by Dwyer, dispatched Deputy Bill McGill, who drove to the crash site, a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl.
The Bonanza had impacted terrain at high speed, estimated to have been around , banked steeply to the right and in a nose-down attitude. The right wing tip had struck the ground first, sending the aircraft cartwheeling across the frozen field for , before coming to rest against a wire fence at the edge of Juhl's property.
The bodies of Holly and Valens had been ejected from the fuselage and lay near the plane's wreckage. Richardson's body had been thrown over the fence and into the cornfield of Juhl's neighbor Oscar Moffett, while Peterson's body was entangled in the wreckage.
With the rest of the entourage en route to Minnesota, Anderson, who had driven the party to the airport and witnessed the plane's takeoff, had to identify the bodies of the musicians. County
coroner
A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...
Ralph Smiley certified that all four victims died instantly, citing the cause of death as "
gross trauma to brain" for the three artists and "brain damage" for the pilot.
Aftermath
María Elena Holly learned of her husband's death via a television news report. A widow after only six months of marriage, she suffered a
miscarriage
Miscarriage, also known in medical terms as a spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently. Miscarriage before 6 weeks of gestation is defined by ESHRE as biochemical lo ...
shortly after, reportedly due to "
psychological trauma
Psychological trauma, mental trauma or psychotrauma is an emotional response to a distressing event or series of events, such as accidents, rape, or natural disasters. Reactions such as psychological shock and psychological denial are typical. ...
". Holly's mother, on hearing the news on the radio at home in
Lubbock
Lubbock ( )
is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northwe ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, screamed and collapsed.
Within months of Holly's death, official protocols were implemented to ensure that the names of victims of traumatic incidents are not released by authorities until after their families have been notified.
Despite the tragedy, the "Winter Dance Party" tour continued. Fifteen-year-old
Bobby Vee
Robert Thomas Velline (April 30, 1943 – October 24, 2016), known professionally as Bobby Vee, was an American singer who was a teen idol in the early 1960s and also appeared in films. According to '' Billboard'' magazine, he had thirty-e ...
was given the task of filling in for Holly at the next scheduled performance in Moorhead, in part because he "knew all the words to all the songs". Jennings and Allsup carried on for two more weeks, with Jennings taking Holly's place as lead singer.
Meanwhile, funerals for the victims were held individually. Holly and Richardson were buried in Texas, Valens in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, and Peterson in Iowa. Holly's widow, María Elena, did not attend the funeral. She later said in an interview: "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane."
Official investigation
The official investigation was carried out by the
Civil Aeronautics Board
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: Th ...
(CAB, precursor to the
NTSB
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
). It emerged that Peterson had over four years of flying experience, of which one was with Dwyer Flying Service, and had accumulated 711 flying hours, of which 128 were on Bonanzas. He had also logged 52 hours of
instrument flight training, although he had passed only his written examination, and was not yet qualified to operate in weather that required flying solely by reference to instruments. Peterson and Dwyer Flying Service itself were certified to operate only under
visual flight rules
In aviation, visual flight rules (VFR) are a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better ...
, which essentially require that the pilot must be able to see where he is going. However, on the night of the accident, visual flight would have been virtually impossible due to the low clouds, the lack of a visible horizon, and the absence of ground lights over the sparsely populated area.
Furthermore, Peterson, who had failed an instrument
checkride A practical test, more commonly known as a checkride, is the Federal Aviation Administration examination which one must undergo in the United States to receive an aircraft pilot's certification, or a rating for additional flight privileges. The nam ...
nine months before the accident, had received his instrument training on airplanes equipped with a conventional
artificial horizon
The attitude indicator (AI), formerly known as the gyro horizon or artificial horizon, is a flight instrument that informs the pilot of the aircraft orientation relative to Earth's horizon, and gives an immediate indication of the smallest orien ...
as a source of aircraft attitude information, while N3794N was equipped with an older-type Sperry F3 attitude
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...
. Crucially, the two types of instruments display the same
aircraft pitch attitude information in graphically opposite ways.
Another contributing factor was the "seriously inadequate" weather briefing provided to Peterson, which "failed to even mention adverse flying conditions which should have been highlighted".
The CAB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was "the pilot's unwise decision" to attempt a flight that required skills he did not have.
Subsequent investigations
On March 6, 2007, in
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat, seat of government of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur, Texas, Port Arthur Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, metropo ...
, Richardson's body was
exhumed for reburial. This was due to the
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL) is a designation awarded by the Texas Historical Commission for historically and architecturally significant properties in the U.S. state of Texas. RTHL is a legal designation and the highest honor the sta ...
being awarded to the Big Bopper's original grave site, where a bronze statue would subsequently be erected. Forest Lawn cemetery did not allow above-ground monuments at that specific site, and Richardson's body was moved at the cemetery's expense to a more suitable area. As the body was to be placed in a new casket while above ground, the musician's son, Jay Perry Richardson, took the opportunity to have his father's body re-examined to verify the original coroner's findings and asked forensic anthropologist
William M. Bass
William Marvin Bass III (born August 30, 1928) is an American forensic anthropologist, best known for his research on human osteology and human decomposition. He has also assisted federal, local, and non-U.S. authorities in the identification of ...
to carry out the procedure. A longstanding rumor surrounding the accident, which this re-examination sought to confirm or dispel, asserted that an accidental firearm discharge took place on board the aircraft and caused the crash. Another longstanding theory surmised that Richardson initially survived the crash and subsequently crawled out of the wreckage in search of help before succumbing to his injuries, prompted by the fact that his body was found farther from the plane than the other victims. Bass and his team took several X-rays of Richardson's body and eventually concluded that the musician had indeed died instantly from extensive, unsurvivable fractures to virtually every bone in his body. No traces of lead were found from any bullet, nor any indication that he had been shot. Coroner Smiley's original 1959 report was, therefore, confirmed as accurate.
In March 2015, the
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
(NTSB) received a request to reopen the investigation into the accident.
The request was made by L. J. Coon, a retired pilot from
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
who felt that the conclusion of the 1959 investigation was inaccurate. Coon suspected a possible failure of the right
ruddervator
The V-tail or ''Vee-tail'' (sometimes called a butterfly tail or Rudlicki's V-tailGudmundsson S. (2013). "General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures" (Reprint). Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 489. , 9780123973290) of an aircraft ...
, or a problem with the fuel system, as well as possible improper weight distribution. Coon also argued that Peterson may have tried to land the plane and that his efforts should be recognized. The NTSB declined the request in April 2015, saying that the evidence presented by Coon was insufficient to merit the reconsideration of the original findings.
[
]
Legacy
Notification of victims' families
Following the miscarriage suffered by Holly's wife and the circumstances in which she was informed of his death, a policy was later adopted by authorities not to disclose victims' names until after their families have been informed.
Memorials
A memorial service for Peterson was held at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Ventura, Iowa
Ventura is a city in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. The population was 711 at the time of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is part of the Mason City, Iowa, Mason City Mason City micropolitan area, Micropolitan Statistical Ar ...
, on February 5. A funeral was held the next day at St. Paul Lutheran Church in his hometown of Alta; Peterson was buried in Buena Vista Memorial Cemetery in nearby Storm Lake.
Films
* The accident is mentioned in the biographical film ''The Buddy Holly Story
''The Buddy Holly Story'' is a 1978 American biographical film which tells the life and career of rock and roll musician Buddy Holly. It features an Academy Award-winning musical score, adapted by Joe Renzetti and Oscar-nominated lead performan ...
'' (1978
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...
).
* The run-up to the accident and its aftermath are also depicted in the Ritchie Valens biopic '' La Bamba'' (1987
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...
).
Memorial concerts
Fans of Holly, Valens, and Richardson have been gathering for annual memorial concerts at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake since 1979. The fiftieth anniversary concert took place on February 2, 2009, with Delbert McClinton
Delbert McClinton (born November 4, 1940) is an American blues rock and electric blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist.
From his first professional stage appearance in 1957 to his most recent national tour in 2018, ...
, Joe Ely
Joe Ely (born February 9, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll.
He has had a genre-crossing career, performing with Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo ...
, Wanda Jackson
Wanda LaVonne Jackson (born October 20, 1937) is an American singer and songwriter. Since the 1950s, she has recorded and released music in the genres of rock, country and gospel. She was among the first women to have a career in rock and roll, ...
, Los Lobos
Los Lobos (, Spanish for "the Wolves") are an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, ...
, Chris Montez
Chris Montez (born Ezekiel Christopher Montañez on January 17, 1943) is an American guitarist and vocalist, whose stylistic approach has ranged from rock & roll to pop standards and Latin music. His rock sound is exemplified in songs such as hi ...
, Bobby Vee
Robert Thomas Velline (April 30, 1943 – October 24, 2016), known professionally as Bobby Vee, was an American singer who was a teen idol in the early 1960s and also appeared in films. According to '' Billboard'' magazine, he had thirty-e ...
, Graham Nash
Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, photographer, and activist. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and the supergroups Crosby, Stills ...
, Peter and Gordon
Peter and Gordon were a British pop duo, composed of Peter Asher (b. 1944) and Gordon Waller (1945–2009), who achieved international fame in 1964 with their first single, the million-selling single "A World Without Love". The duo had several ...
, Tommy Allsup, and a house band featuring Chuck Leavell
Charles Alfred Leavell (born April 28, 1952) is an American musician. A member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the pri ...
, James "Hutch" Hutchinson
James Hutchinson (born January 24, 1953) is an American session bassist best known for his work with Bonnie Raitt. Though his work takes him nearly everywhere he primarily resides in Studio City, Los Angeles, CA and Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii.
Car ...
, Bobby Keys
Robert Henry Keys (December 18, 1943 – December 2, 2014) was an American saxophonist who performed with other musicians as a member of several horn sections of the 1970s. He appears on albums by the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Harry Ni ...
, and Kenny Aronoff
Kenny Aronoff (born March 7, 1953) is an American session drummer.
Early life
Aronoff grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts He developed an interest in music at an early age and gravitated to the drums as "drumming was one hundred percent ene ...
. Jay Perry Richardson, the son of the Big Bopper, was among the participating artists, and Bob Hale was the master of ceremonies, as he was at the 1959 concert.
Monuments
In June 1988, a tall granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
memorial bearing the names of Peterson and the three entertainers was dedicated outside the Surf Ballroom with Peterson's widow, parents, and sister in attendance; the event marked the first time that the families of Holly, Richardson, Valens, and Peterson had gathered together.
In 1989, Ken Paquette, a Wisconsin fan of the 1950s era, made a stainless-steel monument that depicts a guitar and a set of three records
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, ...
bearing the names of the three performers killed in the accident. The monument is on private farmland, about west of the intersection of 315th Street and Gull Avenue, north of Clear Lake. At that intersection, a large plasma-cut steel set of Wayfarer-style glasses, similar to those Holly wore, marks the access point to the crash site.
Paquette also created a similar stainless-steel monument to the three musicians located outside the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Holly, Richardson, and Valens played their penultimate show on February 1. This second memorial was unveiled on July 17, 2003. In February 2009, a further memorial made by Paquette for Peterson was unveiled at the crash site.
File:Surf Ballroom Monument.jpg, Monument in front of the Surf Ballroom
The Surf Ballroom (also called the Surf) is a Historic Rock and Roll Landmark at 460 North Shore Drive, Clear Lake, Iowa, United States. The Surf is closely associated with the event known colloquially as "The Day the Music Died" – early rock ...
in Clear Lake, Iowa
Clear Lake is a city in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,687 at the 2020 census. The city is named for the large lake on which it is located. It is the home of a number of marinas, state parks and tourism-related ...
File:GlassesSign.jpg, alt=A sculpture consisting of two white posts holding a black spectacles frame in Buddy Holly's characteristic style, Signpost east of the crash site replicating Holly's signature glasses
File:HollyMonument.jpg, Memorial at crash site, 2003
Roads
A road originating near the Surf Ballroom, extending north and passing to the west of the crash site, is now known as Buddy Holly Place.
Songs
* Tommy Dee recorded " Three Stars" (1959), commemorating the musicians.
* In 1961, Mike Berry recorded "Tribute to Buddy Holly
"Tribute to Buddy Holly" (also recorded as "A Tribute to Buddy Holly") is a song written by Geoff Goddard, first recorded by Mike Berry and the Outlaws as a single, which was released in September 1961 on His Master's Voice records. His first ...
", which describes the night of the flight. It reached number 24 on the UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
and was notoriously banned by the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
for being "too morbid".
* Don McLean
Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1971 hit song " American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early ...
, a fan of Buddy Holly, later addressed the accident in his song " American Pie" (1971), dubbing it "the Day the Music Died", which for McLean symbolized the "loss of innocence" of the early rock-and-roll generation.
* In 1978, Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music.
Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...
briefly added his own memories of the incident onto his song "A Long Time Ago", from the album '' I've Always Been Crazy''. He sings the lines "Don’t ask me who I gave my seat to on that plane, I think you already know, I told you that a long time ago."
* Dion recorded "Hug My Radiator" which references the "broken-down bus" and the chilling cold the performers experienced on the tour. The song does not directly reference the three performers who died, but Dion has said, in interviews, that the song is a memory of the tour and that he also almost got on the airplane that crashed, but it was too expensive.
Fiction
Howard Waldrop
Howard Waldrop (born September 15, 1946) is a science fiction author who works primarily in short fiction. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2021.
Personal life
Though born in Houston, Mississippi, Waldrop has spent ...
's short story "Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me" (collected in '' Howard Who?'') describes a fictional attempt by a sextet of famous slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...
characters to prevent the accident from occurring.
See also
* List of music group fatalities from aviation accidents
* Continued VFR into IMC Continued VFR into IMC is when an aircraft operating under visual flight rules intentionally or unintentionally enters into instrument meteorological conditions. Flying an aircraft without visual reference to the ground can lead to a phenomenon know ...
Notes
References
Citations
Web
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Books
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Further reading
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External links
February 3, 1959 front page of the ''Mason City Globe-Gazette''
via Newspapers.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
In November 2018, ...
fiftiesweb.com The Day the Music Died
''Bakotopia'' Magazine's 50th Anniversary memorial article
1959: Buddy Holly killed in air crash
First person interview conducted with Tommy Allsup on September 8, 2011. Original audio and transcript archived wit
The true Buddy Holly history
Dion DiMucci's recollections of the tour and the accident, at his official YouTube channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Day The Music Died, The
1959 in American music
1959 in Iowa
1971 neologisms
Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1959
Aviation accidents and incidents in Iowa
Aviation accidents and incidents caused by pilot error
Accidents and incidents involving the Beechcraft Bonanza
Buddy Holly
February 1959 events in the United States
Quotations from music
Ritchie Valens