The Day the Music Died
On February 3, 1959, rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as "The Day the Music Died", after singer-songwriter Don McLean so referred to it in his 1971 song "American Pie".At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the "Winter Dance Party" tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens and Richardson 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 and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly decided to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who had flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.
Soon after take-off, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield, leaving no survivors.
They were three great singers!
Comments (5)
It seems back in those days a lot of things were never fully explained! Science has changed a lot of that!
My guess is that as the plane sat warming up the prop air was circulating in the cowl and the heat off the cylinders was keeping the carb from freezing . once air born the steady stream of frigid air was blowing the warm air out the back and not long after it iced the carb and went down . He wasn't very far form the airport so he didn't have time or altitude to restart or take any evasive action and had no choice but to set it down .
Things like this are very sad because almost all of this is taught in flight school . Pre flight is one of the first things they teach you and it is on the test so there is really no excuse for not knowing it . I suspect that after a while some hot shots don't need to be told what to do . I also read all the time about small planes going down that should have been prevented .
Thank you for the info!
Don McLean- American Pie (with Lyrics)