There is only one person directly responsible for this tragic accident, Jerry Dwyer, the owner of the flight service company & plane. He should never have allowed this to take place, atrocious weather conditions, inexperienced pilot and a small plane. All those factors led to what was a suicidal flight. The other contributing factors were that the Winter Dance Tour was a very badly organised tour, during the most severe weather & zig-zagging across the Mid-West in a bus that wasn’t properly prepared for the tour. Human errors in every way, RIP to Buddy, Ritchie, Big Bopper & the pilot Roger..............
Buddy's agent is more responsible...he was late in getting payments and was withholding 35,000 dollars in back payments (350,000 in 2020 dollars!) so buddy needed the money and set up the tour that turned out to be the tour from hell that froze them and made buddy hire the plane. Track it back to the root cause of the problem. You catching on?
You have to put some blame on the pilot. Roger knew he wasn't certified for IFR especially with inclement weather on the horizon. Not to mention he was totally unaware of the workings of the Gyro . He's the pilot and shares part of the blame. Story has it he was more worried about his flight hrs accruing than safety.
The plane was going about 170mph when it hit the ground . It's right wing struck the ground first, causing it to cartwheel across the field. As it did so the three singers were thrown out of the plane as it broke apart. The pilot, strapped into his seat, remained in the plane. All suffered from severe bodily trauma from the crash and died instantly.
Thank you for writing, your father knew great music and passed it on to you, and as we all share our appreciation for these artists and their music those great times will always be remembered.
IMHO, this is the best commemorative video of their last night. I like that the video portrays that flight without any blame. They were only in the air for a short while...... "The Day the Music Died", by Larry Lehmer, is an excellent book. It discusses in detail the accident and plane as well as that musical era and the Winter Party tour. I'm re-reading it now.
Well, for many many years I've always wanted to visit Clear Lake, Iowa and I finally made it out there just this past week at the beginning of September 2020.
In my opinion, you have made possibly the best tribute posting I have ever seen! It could so easily have looked tacky and unnecessary had you put figures in the seats, and simulated the crash! Also for some strange reason it leaves me with a sense of peace. Thank You, and Well Done. From Tom Clark AKA "SugarsPleeze" one of many Buddy Holly fans.
This video gives me peace strangely. I have a good feeling none of the guys knew what was happening and went peacefully. I have loved Buddy Holly's music since I first heard it on Mom's American Graffiti soundtrack as a 3 year old kid in 1982. Found out years later we are actually distantly related through the same family on my great grandmother's side of the family. It's an honor to know we are related(however distant). I always felt connected to Buddy's music and now I get it. Ritchie and Bopper were amazing too. What those guys could've done...
Interesting video, I applaud your endeavor. Just an observation... In 1959, the area from which the plane took off was more rural. Virtual darkness what if surrounded the airport nowhere near the illumination of buildings shown. *I met a gentleman who was at the Surf Ballroom that fateful night.* I used to travel quite a bit for my work, Over the years I meant hundreds of people and shut up conversations with them sitting in the airports... That's how I met this man. He didn't just tell me a story, he took me back to that night In February, 1959! We really don't know who we could be sitting next to you in an airport or On a train.. I love this journey of my life
@TBrdOne Thank you, and yes, I am presently working on a video of Dad telling his memories of Buddy growing up, and will hopefully have it on here soon...Thanks again, from Randy Holley~
Some people are jerks. And, unfortunately, they are allowed to post comments on TH-cam. Thank you for your tribute to these architects of rock-n-roll. And thank you to my father, also deceased, who raised me on their music.
This was really nice to watch! It's nice to think that he and the guys are still up there somewhere, watching the world below. It leaves you with an easy heart. Thank you for making this tribute!
The music is an instrumental version of the 1971 song American Pie by Don Mclean. It is said that this song was inspired by the death of Buddy Holly and it includes the words "The Day the Music Died". To me the song is about changes and events that affect us as we grow and experience the realities of life and death and leave our carefree youthful times behind. Listen to the original and see what you think. Thanks for writing.
great post, great tribute to four young lives that left us way too soon and class act for not putting the crash in, and to the holley family for never trashing roger petersen you like buddy class act all the way,when the lord calls me home wonder if buddy will sing crying waiting hopeing for me guess i will have to wait for that day ya never know maybe baby
Great video - the music is very touching and sad but very appropriate. It still haunts me as to why why why did they take off in such bad conditions with an inexperienced pilot? I truly believe they (Buddy, Ritchie and the BB) were so exhausted from the show and lack of sleep on the cold crappy buses that they were not thinking clearly that night and a more prudent decision would and could have been made had they not been so tired and fed up with the deplorable conditions they were forced to tour in. I also believe the pilot realized at the last minute he could not handle the flight, had second thoughts and was trying to turn around and head back to the airport but crashed before he realized it. People living in farmhouses near the crash site did report hearing a plane struggling to get airborne and saw the brief flashes of the plane's wing and taillights and one person even reported the plane barely missed crashing into their house, which is why I believe Roger Peterson was hit with the realization just seconds before they crashed.....spooky stuff.
Paula Houlden I don’t think it was necessarily weather related because the weather was not bad when they took off. Everyone reported it was a clear, crisp night and you could see the stars. The plane crashed only a few miles from the airport and had not had time to reach the really bad weather up ahead. I believe the pilot was 100% unfamiliar with his gyro instrument because it was stated that the gyro in this plane operated differently than the one he had trained with. Also, he had failed his previous instrument trainings and was known to panic when he became disoriented. Of course, Dwyer says differently- of course he does- he didn’t want to admit any liability. I think this crash was 100% pilot error.
I dont think the weather was that bad, i was just a kid, and I think we lived about 300 miles from Clear Lake, but they would have run into extremely bad weather near Fargo. But when my brother and I heard the horrible news the next morning, there was less than a half inch of snow on the ground with very light snow flurries. The photos of the crash show about the same conditions we woke up to. Being that they were headed right into a nasty storm, perhaps you are correct that the pilot was turning around. Couple that with possible ice on the plane's wings, and a plane that was only meant to carry 1,000 pounds and that sounds very believable to me. Three passengers, the pilot and alot of the bands equipment and personal effects, I think they were pushing or exceeding the plane's limits. The turning back of the plane may have caused a shift in the weight making the plane unstable. Ice on wings, plane possibly packed to limit or over and event shifting the distribution of the planes weight sounds like a recipe for a plane crash to me. What a horrible day that was! And being on a schedule and in a hurry, hasty decisions may have been made without time to figure essential factors before departure. God bless and keep those four young men.
The pilot was not instrument rated. He had completed the school and written portion, but failed the flight test a few months earlier. Not being familiar with the newly installed gyro may have played a role but I feel like they may have also encountered significant icing, which was reported to Mason City Airport, but never conveyed to the pilot, as denoted in the official NTSB report. Icing would have most likely frozen the pitot tubes, which send information to the vertical-speed and airspeed indicators. That, in conjunction with the lack of visible horizon, turbulence, due to the known gusty winds and not knowing whether they were descending or ascending, likely served to effectively make for completely blind flying. As is often the case with air disasters, a culmination of several unfortunate circumstances converge in succession to doom a flight. In any case, I think it is safe to say that a prudent pilot would have declined the flight, due to so many factors involved. As the saying in general aviation goes, if you absolutely, positively need to be somewhere, DRIVE!!! Very unfortunate....
continentalb737800 is correct. I've flown this takeoff in FSX several times. Pilot was OK until flying into the darkness at the north end of the runway at about 1000 feet AGL. He then transitioned to instruments (for which he was rated), turned on course, but because of unfamiliarity with a different artificial horizon he set the plane into a gradual descent instead of a gradual climb. Modern planes use an aircraft symbol and colors to make sure this doesn't happen again. Nice tribute vid.
@randyholley1959 Thanks for writing, I'm very pleased to hear from you. I hope some of the young ones will learn about your uncle Buddy and all his great music.
There was never a flight plan filed but do you roughly know the logical flight plan to Fargo, I have seen some dwyer interviews and I understand that Alexandria was to be the first check point, great video by the way
Interesting and made with great intention..thanks. This crash is being re-investigated as the NTSB think weight distribution in addition the the weather played a part in the crash.
I’m not a pilot but Apparently these planes have a internal cable from wing to the other another and I wonder due to wind and bad weather and weight had that cable become frozen or snapped causing the plane to loose control
is the population density accurate? i assume clear lake, Iowa was really a very small town surrounded by farmland. the ground layout looks more suburban
The Day the Music Died, dubbed so by a lyric in the Don McLean song "American Pie", is a reference to the deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. Pilot Roger Peterson was also killed. After terminating his partnership with the Crickets, Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, to play on the '"Winter Dance Party" tour. The tour also featured rising artists Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, who were promoting their own recordings as well. The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks. The distance between venues and the conditions prevalent aboard the poorly equipped tour buses adversely affected the performers. Cases of flu spread among the band members, and Bunch was hospitalized due to frostbite. Frustrated by the conditions, Holly decided to charter a plane when they stopped for their performance in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carroll Anderson, owner of the Surf Ballroom, chartered the plane from the Dwyer Flying Service. Richardson, who was affected by the flu, swapped places with Waylon Jennings, taking the latter's place on the plane, while Tommy Allsup lost his place to Ritchie Valens on a coin toss. Dion DiMucci (of Dion and the Belmonts fame) decided not to board the plane for the $36 fee (equivalent to $291 in 2015). The investigation of the accident determined that soon after take off, a combination of poor weather conditions and pilot error caused spatial disorientation that made pilot Roger Peterson lose control of the plane. Hubert Dwyer, owner of the flight service company, could not establish radio contact and reported the aircraft missing the next morning. He took off in his own Cessna 180 and spotted the wreckage less than six miles (9.7 km) northwest of the originating airport in a cornfield. He notified the authorities who dispatched Deputy Bill McGill, who drove to the wreck site and found the bodies of the passengers and pilot. They were later identified by Carroll Anderson.
roger got a bad rap on this,that plane was in the air under 4 mins why would he even be looking at the gyro at that point he knew were he was my thought he was fighting to keep the plane in the air and the was trying to skid land it,in under a 4 min flight he could not have been that confused that he did not know were he was, any way rest in peace buddy holly,big bopper,ritchie valens,and roger petersen your all missed
What happened was they took off in a snow storm, plane wasnt equipped with Anti Ice to keep the ice off the wings and ice formed all over the wings reducing lift and the plane stalled and crashed.
There is only one person directly responsible for this tragic accident, Jerry Dwyer, the owner of the flight service company & plane. He should never have allowed this to take place, atrocious weather conditions, inexperienced pilot and a small plane. All those factors led to what was a suicidal flight.
The other contributing factors were that the Winter Dance Tour was a very badly organised tour, during the most severe weather & zig-zagging across the Mid-West in a bus that wasn’t properly prepared for the tour. Human errors in every way, RIP to Buddy, Ritchie, Big Bopper & the pilot Roger..............
There was never a flight plan filed. Isn't it normal protocol to do this before the pilot departs? Perhaps this is a clue to how this business is run.
It was the 1950s, a private plane, and something like 1 AM. A flight plan probably wasn’t required
Buddy tried to book a flight the day before in Green Bay but they wouldn't let him due to the weather conditions.
Buddy's agent is more responsible...he was late in getting payments and was withholding 35,000 dollars in back payments (350,000 in 2020 dollars!) so buddy needed the money and set up the tour that turned out to be the tour from hell that froze them and made buddy hire the plane. Track it back to the root cause of the problem. You catching on?
You have to put some blame on the pilot. Roger knew he wasn't certified for IFR especially with inclement weather on the horizon. Not to mention he was totally unaware of the workings of the Gyro . He's the pilot and shares part of the blame. Story has it he was more worried about his flight hrs accruing than safety.
The plane was going about 170mph when it hit the ground . It's right wing struck the ground first, causing it to cartwheel across the field. As it did so the three singers were thrown out of the plane as it broke apart. The pilot, strapped into his seat, remained in the plane. All suffered from severe bodily trauma from the crash and died instantly.
Thank you for your nice comments, it's good to hear your thoughts, I'm glad to know they are remembered, Those days were a time of some great music.
Excellent video, very well done...
I know it was bad weather but we may never know how or why the plane crashed since it was only 5 miles into the flight.
The empty aircraft is very haunting. I really like the instrumental version of American Pie.
This was and is the real music RIP for ever
Thank you for writing, your father knew great music and passed it on to you, and as we all share our appreciation for these artists and their music those great times will always be remembered.
IMHO, this is the best commemorative video of their last night. I like that the video portrays that flight without any blame.
They were only in the air for a short while......
"The Day the Music Died", by Larry Lehmer, is an excellent book. It discusses in detail the accident and plane as well as that musical era and the Winter Party tour.
I'm re-reading it now.
" The Skies belong to the Stars " R.I.P. Buddy, Ritchie and The Big Bopper! Shawn.
Well, for many many years I've always wanted to visit Clear Lake, Iowa and I finally made it out there just this past week at the beginning of September 2020.
In my opinion, you have made possibly the best tribute posting I have ever seen!
It could so easily have looked tacky and unnecessary had you put figures in the seats, and simulated the crash! Also for some strange reason it leaves me with a sense of peace.
Thank You, and Well Done. From Tom Clark AKA "SugarsPleeze" one of many Buddy Holly fans.
100% agree
This video gives me peace strangely. I have a good feeling none of the guys knew what was happening and went peacefully. I have loved Buddy Holly's music since I first heard it on Mom's American Graffiti soundtrack as a 3 year old kid in 1982. Found out years later we are actually distantly related through the same family on my great grandmother's side of the family. It's an honor to know we are related(however distant). I always felt connected to Buddy's music and now I get it. Ritchie and Bopper were amazing too. What those guys could've done...
Interesting video, I applaud your endeavor.
Just an observation... In 1959, the area from which the plane took off was more rural.
Virtual darkness what if surrounded the airport nowhere near the illumination of buildings shown.
*I met a gentleman who was at the Surf Ballroom that fateful night.*
I used to travel quite a bit for my work, Over the years I meant hundreds of people and shut up conversations with them sitting in the airports... That's how I met this man.
He didn't just tell me a story, he took me back to that night In February, 1959!
We really don't know who we could be sitting next to you in an airport or On a train.. I love this journey of my life
The music was never the same since that day.
@TBrdOne Thank you, and yes, I am presently working on a video of Dad telling his memories of Buddy growing up, and will hopefully have it on here soon...Thanks again, from Randy Holley~
Thank you for not putting the crash in, from Buddy's nephew...nice tribute!
You are Buddy's nephew ?really? So Travis and Larry are your uncles?🎤🎵😺
No way!!! Pleasure to meet you... sorry for your loss.
I am Larry's son...thank you...
I appreciate your nice comments, thank you.
Some people are jerks. And, unfortunately, they are allowed to post comments on TH-cam. Thank you for your tribute to these architects of rock-n-roll. And thank you to my father, also deceased, who raised me on their music.
This was really nice to watch!
It's nice to think that he and the guys are still up there somewhere, watching the world below. It leaves you with an easy heart.
Thank you for making this tribute!
The music is an instrumental version of the 1971 song American Pie by Don Mclean. It is said that this song was inspired by the death of Buddy Holly and it includes the words "The Day the Music Died". To me the song is about changes and events that affect us as we grow and experience the realities of life and death and leave our carefree youthful times behind. Listen to the original and see what you think. Thanks for writing.
great post, great tribute to four young lives that left us way too soon and class act for not putting the crash in, and to the holley family for never trashing roger petersen you like buddy class act all the way,when the lord calls me home wonder if buddy will sing crying waiting hopeing for me guess i will have to wait for that day ya never know maybe baby
Rip Ritchie
This was so beautiful, it actually made me cry. The midi American Pie made it really cool.
@2SugarsPleeze Thank you for writing such nice comments, Buddy lives on through his many fans. Your music is awesome, wish I could play like that.
This is amazing! thank you for sharing
For me, the day that music died was the day that Bad Bunny was named composer of the year. for me Ritchie is still alive
Great video - the music is very touching and sad but very appropriate. It still haunts me as to why why why did they take off in such bad conditions with an inexperienced pilot? I truly believe they (Buddy, Ritchie and the BB) were so exhausted from the show and lack of sleep on the cold crappy buses that they were not thinking clearly that night and a more prudent decision would and could have been made had they not been so tired and fed up with the deplorable conditions they were forced to tour in. I also believe the pilot realized at the last minute he could not handle the flight, had second thoughts and was trying to turn around and head back to the airport but crashed before he realized it. People living in farmhouses near the crash site did report hearing a plane struggling to get airborne and saw the brief flashes of the plane's wing and taillights and one person even reported the plane barely missed crashing into their house, which is why I believe Roger Peterson was hit with the realization just seconds before they crashed.....spooky stuff.
Paula Houlden I don’t think it was necessarily weather related because the weather was not bad when they took off. Everyone reported it was a clear, crisp night and you could see the stars. The plane crashed only a few miles from the airport and had not had time to reach the really bad weather up ahead. I believe the pilot was 100% unfamiliar with his gyro instrument because it was stated that the gyro in this plane operated differently than the one he had trained with. Also, he had failed his previous instrument trainings and was known to panic when he became disoriented. Of course, Dwyer says differently- of course he does- he didn’t want to admit any liability. I think this crash was 100% pilot error.
Harvey Andrews wrote a beautiful song:"please dont get on the plane"😿👻💜
I dont think the weather was that bad, i was just a kid, and I think we lived about 300 miles from Clear Lake, but they would have run into extremely bad weather near Fargo. But when my brother and I heard the horrible news the next morning, there was less than a half inch of snow on the ground with very light snow flurries. The photos of the crash show about the same conditions we woke up to. Being that they were headed right into a nasty storm, perhaps you are correct that the pilot was turning around. Couple that with possible ice on the plane's wings, and a plane that was only meant to carry 1,000 pounds and that sounds very believable to me. Three passengers, the pilot and alot of the bands equipment and personal effects, I think they were pushing or exceeding the plane's limits. The turning back of the plane may have caused a shift in the weight making the plane unstable. Ice on wings, plane possibly packed to limit or over and event shifting the distribution of the planes weight sounds like a recipe for a plane crash to me. What a horrible day that was! And being on a schedule and in a hurry, hasty decisions may have been made without time to figure essential factors before departure. God bless and keep those four young men.
@@pnkkitty1 Wow. If only...
Well done, Sir.
Amazing it is so touching
Thank you for Sharing this - Good Work !!
The pilot was not instrument rated. He had completed the school and written portion, but failed the flight test a few months earlier. Not being familiar with the newly installed gyro may have played a role but I feel like they may have also encountered significant icing, which was reported to Mason City Airport, but never conveyed to the pilot, as denoted in the official NTSB report. Icing would have most likely frozen the pitot tubes, which send information to the vertical-speed and airspeed indicators. That, in conjunction with the lack of visible horizon, turbulence, due to the known gusty winds and not knowing whether they were descending or ascending, likely served to effectively make for completely blind flying. As is often the case with air disasters, a culmination of several unfortunate circumstances converge in succession to doom a flight. In any case, I think it is safe to say that a prudent pilot would have declined the flight, due to so many factors involved. As the saying in general aviation goes, if you absolutely, positively need to be somewhere, DRIVE!!! Very unfortunate....
continentalb737800 is correct. I've flown this takeoff in FSX several times. Pilot was OK until flying into the darkness at the north end of the runway at about 1000 feet AGL. He then transitioned to instruments (for which he was rated), turned on course, but because of unfamiliarity with a different artificial horizon he set the plane into a gradual descent instead of a gradual climb. Modern planes use an aircraft symbol and colors to make sure this doesn't happen again. Nice tribute vid.
@randyholley1959 Thanks for writing, I'm very pleased to hear from you. I hope some of the young ones will learn about your uncle Buddy and all his great music.
There was never a flight plan filed but do you roughly know the logical flight plan to Fargo, I have seen some dwyer interviews and I understand that Alexandria was to be the first check point, great video by the way
October the 20th of 1977 the music died again
Interesting music 🎶 🎶 🎵 🪕 🎼
Interesting and made with great intention..thanks. This crash is being re-investigated as the NTSB think weight distribution in addition the the weather played a part in the crash.
2/3/2015 RIP The memorial stands in an Iowa cornfield, but they live in our hearts, still.
I’m not a pilot but Apparently these planes have a internal cable from wing to the other another and I wonder due to wind and bad weather and weight had that cable become frozen or snapped causing the plane to loose control
Perhaps that could be a possibility.
r.I.p
did any other planes take off that night
Thank you :)
is the population density accurate? i assume clear lake, Iowa was really a very small town surrounded by farmland. the ground layout looks more suburban
Thank you for your compliment.
The Day the Music Died, dubbed so by a lyric in the Don McLean song "American Pie", is a reference to the deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. Pilot Roger Peterson was also killed.
After terminating his partnership with the Crickets, Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, to play on the '"Winter Dance Party" tour. The tour also featured rising artists Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, who were promoting their own recordings as well. The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks.
The distance between venues and the conditions prevalent aboard the poorly equipped tour buses adversely affected the performers. Cases of flu spread among the band members, and Bunch was hospitalized due to frostbite. Frustrated by the conditions, Holly decided to charter a plane when they stopped for their performance in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carroll Anderson, owner of the Surf Ballroom, chartered the plane from the Dwyer Flying Service. Richardson, who was affected by the flu, swapped places with Waylon Jennings, taking the latter's place on the plane, while Tommy Allsup lost his place to Ritchie Valens on a coin toss. Dion DiMucci (of Dion and the Belmonts fame) decided not to board the plane for the $36 fee (equivalent to $291 in 2015).
The investigation of the accident determined that soon after take off, a combination of poor weather conditions and pilot error caused spatial disorientation that made pilot Roger Peterson lose control of the plane. Hubert Dwyer, owner of the flight service company, could not establish radio contact and reported the aircraft missing the next morning. He took off in his own Cessna 180 and spotted the wreckage less than six miles (9.7 km) northwest of the originating airport in a cornfield. He notified the authorities who dispatched Deputy Bill McGill, who drove to the wreck site and found the bodies of the passengers and pilot. They were later identified by Carroll Anderson.
Thanks for watching and writing and for providing the interesting extra details about that day.
The sky belongs to the stars
How were the 3 bodies thrown from the plane and not the pilot?
roger got a bad rap on this,that plane was in the air under 4 mins why would he even be looking at the gyro at that point he knew were he was my thought he was fighting to keep the plane in the air and the was trying to skid land it,in under a 4 min flight he could not have been that confused that he did not know were he was, any way rest in peace buddy holly,big bopper,ritchie valens,and roger petersen your all missed
Great music - RIP
plane shouldve never been allowed to take off imo. nice tribute
In a few days will be another anniversary of that fateful tour.
@mrceebees14 Thank you, and he was innovative, and had a good way with what he did with the guitar~
What happened was they took off in a snow storm, plane wasnt equipped with Anti Ice to keep the ice off the wings and ice formed all over the wings reducing lift and the plane stalled and crashed.
@continentalb737800 I believe it, and I'm glad you learned about it and wrote here about it, thanks for the information.
What an uplifting version of the song. Such a cheerful version of this song to crash and die to.
I saw Satan laughing with delight
Didn't even show the crash worst video. What was the point of it all?
@continentalb737800 Yes...that is how it went! The Sprie Gyro had just been changed, and the new one read backwards from the old one.
@continentalb737800 Sounds like a case of sabatage, hmmm, could it be another conspiracy? Thanks for writing and remembering.
On February 3rd, 1959, the Plane smashed into the ground after takeoff.
its you
*scratches my head*
@@jacksalvin364 you were commenting on my train crash vids remember?
That. Yeah, that's the worst accident in history.
Can you do one about Ricky Nelson and Patsy Cline?
best one yet!
Peterson was not rated for IFR nor Instruments. All he had was a PPL.
RIP
hy didnt i see the plane crash
Complete misrepresentation of the flight that killed those wonderful musicians! Ridiculous!
chido
Turn the music off it ruins the video.
That song sucks anyway.
That is the worst choice of mood music I've ever heard.