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:
“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 16:19-22.