Feb 3rd is remembered as the Day the Music Died. On this day in 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and  J.P. Richardson along with their pilot, Roger Peterson died in a plane crash. For those of you that know the words to the famous song by Don McLean, Feb 3rd is the day he is referring to.

“The Winter Dance Party” was a tour that was set to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks. A logistical problem with the tour was the amount of travel. The tour bus used to carry the musicians was ill-prepared for the weather; its heating system broke shortly after the tour began.

A plane was chartered but could only carry three people. Waylon Jennings gave his seat up to Richardson, who was running a fever and had trouble fitting his stocky frame comfortably into the bus seats.

When Holly learned that Jennings wasn’t going to fly, he said, “Well, I hope your old bus freezes up.” Jennings responded, “Well, I hope your plane crashes.” This friendly banter of friends would haunt Jennings for years.

Allsup told Valens, I’ll flip you for the remaining seat. On the toss of a coin, Valens won the seat.

The plane took off a little after 1 A.M. from Clear Lake and never got far from the airport before it crashed, killing all onboard.Just after 1:00 am Central Time on February 3, the plane took off from Mason City Municipal Airport. Around 1:05 the owner of Dwyer Flying Service saw the lights of the plane start to descend from the sky to the ground.

Around 9:15 in the morning, Dwyer took off in another small plane to fly Peterson’s intended route. A short time later, Dwyer spotted the wreckage in a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl. Carroll Anderson, the manager of the Surf Ballroom who drove the performers to the airport and witnessed the plane taking off, made the positive identification of the performers.

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