The Day The Music Died
Holly, Valens and Richardson left The Surf immediately after the show, going to the nearby Mason City airport and chartering a small plane to take them to Fargo, North Dakota to prepare for their next show at the Moorhead Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota.
The plane took off at 12:55 AM Central Time on Tuesday February 3, 1959. Shortly after takeoff, young pilot Roger Peterson, in a combination of spatial disorientation and misinterpretion of a flight instrument, flew the plane into the ground, killing everyone aboard. According to the report, Peterson was not certificated to fly commercially at night, nor was he qualified to fly in the adverse weather (IFR) conditions which prevailed at the time of the flight. Although Peterson underwent formal IFR training, he failed his final checkride weeks before the accident.
A concrete monument was erected outside The Surf, and the ballroom is adorned with large pictures of the three musicians. A street flanking the facility's east property line is named Buddy Holly Place in his honor.
Read more about this topic: Surf Ballroom
Famous quotes containing the words day, music and/or died:
“If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
—Bible: New Testament Luke 17:3-4.
“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Her fist of a face died clenched on a round pain;
And sculptured Ann is seventy years of stone.
These cloud-sopped, marble hands, this monumental
Argument of the hewn voice, gesture and psalm,
Storm me forever over her grave”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)