The day the music died: The Buddy Holly plane crash explained

Immortalized in Don McLean’s hit song American Pie, ‘the day the music died’ is a reference to one of the most tragic events in rock ‘n’ roll history. On February 3, 1959, a Beechcraft Bonanza crashed in bad weather near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing four exemplary musicians of the time. But what caused the Buddy Holly plane crash, and could it have been prevented?

What led up to the Buddy Holly plane crash?

In the early part of 1959, Buddy Holly and his band were playing the ‘Winter Dance Party’ tour across the American Midwest, supported by emerging artists Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson, aka ‘The Big Bopper’. The route was poorly planned, with the band zigzagging between cities, sometimes traveling for ten or 12 hours a day.

WikimediaBack then, there were no interstate highways, and driving was entirely on two-lane rural roads. The midwinter temperatures were extreme, sometimes down to −36 °F (−38 °C), with waist-deep snow. The buses used for the tour were wholly inadequate, frequently breaking down, often with non-functional heating. 

By February, the cold weather had begun to take its toll. Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were coming down with the flu, and Holly’s drummer, Carl Bunch, was hospitalized with severely frostbitten feet after one of the buses broke down. 

On February 2, the bands played a concert at Clear Lake, just west of Mason City in Iowa. Their next destination was to be Moorhead in Minnesota, a good 365 miles (590 km) away. Frustrated with the scheduling of the tour and the poor quality of the buses, Holly made the decision to charter an aircraft to Fargo, North Dakota, the nearest airport to Moorhead.

Who got on Buddy Holly’s plane?

The group chartered a plane from Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City – a 1947 single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza. Registered N3794N, the aircraft seated three passengers plus the pilot, so there was competition for the seats. 

Bill Larkins via WikimediaAs J.P. Richardson was suffering from the flu, bass player Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the flight so that J.P. could get some rest. Dion DiMucci, lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts, was due to fly but is said to have flipped a coin with Ritchie Valens for the seat: Valens won.

Ultimately, the three passengers were Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson and Ritchie Valens. The plane was piloted by Roger Peterson, a 21-year-old commercial pilot and flight instructor. He had been flying since 1954 and had accumulated 711 flying hours, of which 128 were in Bonanza aircraft.

The Bonanza took off just before 1 am on February 3, 1959. Hubert Jerry Dwyer, owner of the flying service, observed the aircraft taking off in a normal manner, turning and climbing to around 800 feet (240 m). It was seen turning again, then the tail light was observed slowly descending before it disappeared from view.

Peterson was expected to make radio contact at around 1 am, but that call was never received. Multiple attempts were made to establish contact with the aircraft, but it couldn’t be reached. 

When daylight broke, Dwyer retraced Peterson’s route in another aircraft, finally spotting the wreckage around six miles (10 km) northwest of the airport. 

The Bonanza had impacted terrain at high speed with the aircraft banked 90 degrees to the right. The wingtip struck the ground first, carving a 12-foot (4 m) groove in the ground before breaking off. The fuselage rolled inverted, striking the ground nose first and sending the aircraft into a nose-over-tail roll. It flipped across the frozen field for more than 500 feet (160 m), coming to rest against a fence.

Holly, Richardson and Valens were thrown from the plane as it tumbled, while pilot Peterson was entangled in the wreckage. The county coroner reported that all four victims died instantly as a result of head trauma.

AP via WikimediaInvestigating the Buddy Holly plane crash

The investigation was undertaken by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB, the precursor to the NTSB), which revealed several crucial failings that led to the accident. 

While Peterson had some experience in the Bonanza, he did not have a huge number of flying hours and, crucially, had only 52 hours of instrument flight training. He had passed the written examination for instrument flights, but had not fully qualified in instrument rating. 

As a company, Dwyer Flying Service was certified only to fly under visual flight rules. As such, conditions need to allow the pilot to see everything going on around the aircraft. On the night of the flight, visual flying would have been practically impossible, given the extensive low cloud and absence of a visible horizon. The area was sparsely populated, so there weren’t even ground lights to give the pilot a clue as to his orientation.

Peterson had completed his instrument training on planes equipped with an artificial horizon gyroscope. These place the sky at the top and the ground at the bottom of the instrument. However, the Bonanza used on the night of the fateful flight was equipped with an older Sperry F3 altitude gyroscope. These place the sky at the bottom and the ground at the top of the instrument, completely opposite to the artificial horizon he was used to seeing.

CABContributing to the disastrous mix was a lack of communication to Peterson about flying conditions along his route. He’d gone to receive a weather update at around 5:30 pm that afternoon, when he was told cloud ceilings were 4,200 ft or better, with visibility of 10 miles or more.

But a flash advisory issued by the US Weather Bureau at 11:35 pm that night indicated that conditions had worsened. The advisory noted cloud ceilings had fallen below 1,000 and visibility had dropped to two miles or less with freezing drizzle, light snow and fog throughout the region. This information was never passed to Peterson.

In its report, the CAB noted that at the time of takeoff, the temperature was dropping, snow had begun to fall and visibility was getting worse. The winds were high and conditions were such that Peterson “could reasonably have expected to encounter adverse weather during the estimated two hour flight”. The report concluded that, considering all the facts regarding the weather and the visual flight certification of the company, “the decision to go seems most imprudent”.

What caused the Buddy Holly plane crash?

As to what happened in the moments before the crash, it is believed that, shortly after takeoff, Peterson entered an area of complete darkness with no definite horizon. Blinded by snow, he was reliant on instruments to understand the aircraft’s altitude and orientation.

But the aircraft was flying through gusty high winds and turbulence, which would have made the turn and bank indicator fluctuate. A more experienced pilot may have been able to compensate for this, but Peterson’s lack of experience likely meant he struggled to understand the information. The airspeed and altimeter alone wouldn’t have provided enough information to maintain control and pitch of the aircraft, which would have left him reliant on the gyroscope.

As we know, the gyro in question worked the opposite way to those that he was used to. It’s likely that, out there in the cold, dark night, Peterson thought he was climbing, whereas actually he was descending towards terrain. The fact that the aircraft struck the ground in a steep turn with the nose lowered supports this hypothesis.

In conclusion, the CAB stated:

“The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s unwise decision to embark on a flight that would necessitate flying solely by instruments when he was not properly certificated or qualified to do so. Contributing factors were serious deficiencies in the weather briefing, and the pilot’s unfamiliarity with the instrument that determines the altitude of the aircraft.”The CAB duly issued a reminder to all pilots never to take a flight where they would need to rely on equipment that they were not proficient in using.

At the time of his death, Buddy Holly was just 22. Ritchie Valens was just 17, while the Big Bopper was the eldest on the aircraft at age 28. Four lives were cut short that day – three groundbreaking performers who would influence the music industry for years to come and a young pilot just starting out in his career.

Several memorials have been erected in memory of the tragedy. There’s a monument at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, the site of their last performance, and at the crash site are stainless steel tributes to all four victims, with the entrance marked by replicas of Holly’s signature glasses.

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