Buddy Holly's plane crash site

Buddy was offered the Winter Dance Party by the General Artist Corporation, a three-week tour across the Midwest  with other notable performers Tommy Allsup, Waylan Jennings, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.  The tour begun on January 23, 1959 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The tour moves to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Iowa with a performance schedule for Feburary 2, 1959.  Due to mechnical differculty with their charted bus, the group arrived at Surf Ballroom less than two hours before the performance. The ballroom was packed with about 1500 people, many drove hundreds of miles to see the three rock stars.

Buddy was fed up with the charted bus with its faulty heater, a bad thing in Upper Midwest winter,so before the perfromance, Buddy asked the Surf manager Carroll Anderson about renting a chartered plane to fly him to his next destination in Moorhead, Minnesota.  Carroll said that he knows the owner of Dywer Flying Service in nearby Mason City and he will called him to arrange a flight.  Carroll was not able to get hold of the owner Jerry Dywer, so he called one of it pilot, Roger Peterson and Roger agreed to take Buddy plus two others to Moorhead.

After the performance, the group got ready to travel to their next destination in Moorhead, Minnesota. Buddy decided to get there first with a charter plane. Since the plane can only seat four peoples including the pilot. Buddy already have a seat , while the remaining two seats were decided with coin toss.  Ritchie Valens and Big Booper win the toss and got on the plane with Buddy.  While Tommy Allsup and Waylan Jenning lost the toss ( lucky for them ). And they were to arrive at Moorhead later with the tour bus, which has a faulty heater, a bad thing in  Minnesota winter. In his 1996 autobiography, Waylon Jennings stated that he was very dissapointed that he had to ride in the freezing  bus, so his parting remark to Buddy was "I hope your damn plane crashes!",  Jennings claimed that this remark has haunted him ever since.

The took off around 1:00 AM from Mason City Airport, Feburary 3 and crashed only minutes later killing all three rock stars and the pilot.  Feburary 3, 1959 becomes known as the "The Day the Music Die" in Don Mclean's 1971 song, the "American Pie".  Don Mclean must not be a fan of Waylan Jenning and Tommy Allsup, since they became the top rock stars after the crash.

The crash site is in a field, 1/2 miles from the intersection of Gull Ave and 333rd Street. To get there, take exit 197 from Interstate I-35 / IA-27.  A big pair of black glass is there to let you know that you are in the right place (see photo).

On the evening of February 2, 1959, the manager of the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake contacted Dywer Flying Service to arrange a charter flight from Mason City to Fargo, North Dakota, the nearest airport to Moorhead MN. He couldn't get hold of Jerry Dywer, the ower of Dywer Flying Service, so he contacted one of its pilot, Roger Peterson. Peterson agreed to take the flight. Roger already had worked a whole day and were not expecting to take on additional 3 hours of flying to Fargo, ND, but he accept the charter flight due to his financial need.

 Roger then called Jerry Dywer (Roger knew where Jerry was). Jerry arrived at the hanger at Mason City Airport and he selected 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza from the Dywer fleet. The two then got the plane fueled and wheel it out of the hanger.

After the performance at Surf Ballroom, the Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson took the three rocks stars in his car and drove them 2 miles to the Mason City Airport and the hanger for the Dywer Air Service.  The three then boarded the plane with the Roger.

 The plane with the rock stars took off in light snow from  Mason City Airport with the  around  1:00 AM on the morning of February 3, 1959. It crashed only three miles from the airport as it flew directly into the snow covered ground and did not catch on fire, but it summersaulted several times throwing all three rocks stars out of plane.  Buddy and Ritchies bodies were found near the plane wreckage, but Big Bopper's body was founded some 50 feet from the wreckage, which led to spectulation that perhaps Richardson might have survived the crash and was able to walk a few step before dying. But this rumor was put to rest in 2007 (See story Richardson's 2007 autopsy).

 The Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the primary cause of the crash was pilot error due to Peterson's inability to accurately interpret the newly-installed Sperry F3 attitude indicator which he was forced to rely upon in the prevailing weather conditions. The theory is that Peterson may have read the gyroscope backwards as a result of vertigo and thought that the plane was gaining altitude when it was actually descending.

J. P. Richardson ( Big Blooper) body was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumount Texas. In 2007, Richardson's son decided to have the grave moved to a different part of the cemetery, a more visible location so they can ererct a life-size statue and historic marker. The disinterment offered Richardson's son Jay a chance to ask experts to examine his father's remains to determine if his father had walked away from the wreckage, because his body was found over 50 feets from the wreckage, resulting in many rumors.

William M. Basss undertook the procedure and confirmed the 1959 report. The body of Richardson was in good preservation, but showed "massive fractures", showing that he too had died on impact, and no way could have walked fifty feet, as all leg bones were shattered.  Since Jay was born two month after the death of his father, he was present during autopsy and finally saw the father that he has never seem.

J. P. Richardson body was reburied in a new casket and the used metal casket was given to the Texas Musician's Museum. In December 2008, Jay Richardson announced that he would be placing the old casket up for auction on eBay to raise money for The Texas Musician's Museum.  At the time of writing of this story, it is not known if it is still on the eBay.

Buddy met Maria Elena Santiago in June 1958 and they were married in Lubbock, Texas on August 15, 1958. She was pregnant when Buddy was kill and became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after. María Elena Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. She later told the Avalanche-Journal, "In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane.

In the song American Pie, Don Mclean refered Maria Elena Holly as the "widowed bride".