Death
After the February 2, 1959, performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly, Richardson and Valens flew out of the Mason City airport in a small plane that Holly had chartered. Valens was on the plane because he had won a coin toss. The plane, a three-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza, departed for Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed shortly after takeoff in a snow storm. The crash killed all three passengers and the pilot Roger Peterson. At 17, Valens was the youngest to die on the flight. The event, along with Buddy Holly's death, inspired singer Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie," and immortalized February 3 as "The Day the Music Died." Ritchie Valens is interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.
Read more about this topic: Ritchie Valens
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“When death has you by the throat, you don’t mince words.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Sad. Nothing more than sad. Let’s not call it a tragedy; a broken heart is never a tragedy. Only untimely death is a tragedy.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Young lover to old lover: I do not feel death in your embrace, but the adoration of the patriarchs.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)