Uncovering the story from behind the scenes: The day the music died
- Rob Joyce
- Feb 2, 2025
- 4 min read
It was 66 years ago on February 3, that authorities from Mason City, Iowa, were able to finally drive out to a snowy cornfield just a few miles outside of town.
Jerry Dwyer, the owner of a charter service, had watched from the control tower as a small one-engine prop plane take off shortly after midnight. Snow was falling and the wind was gusting. But the plane still left the runway, as Dwyer watched its navigation lights disappear about five miles from the Mason City Airport.
As he stood there, hoping for the best, he asked air traffic control to use their radio to call out to the pilot to make contact, but they were unsuccessful.
It wasn’t until 5:30 a.m. in the morning that Dwyer’s fears were realized. He conducted an air search shortly after sunrise and found the plane had crashed. It lay in the snow, debris scattered over several hundred feet – 572 to be exact.
When the sheriff and deputies arrived shortly thereafter, they found the small Beach Craft Bonanza plane resting against a fence. They began taking notes of what they found, and where, as one of them called the coroner by radio to come to the scene. Three passengers had died on impact and were thrown from the plane. A fourth was inside.
Acting Coroner Dr. Ralph Smiley investigated the crash scene, as newspaper and press people were gathering at the crash site. At one point it was guessed that more than 20 people trampled through the wreckage and debris.
A light dusting of snow covered the plane, the clothes and suitcases that had fallen out as the plane tumbled across the ground. The plane was a mangled mess of metal. It had struck the ground at 170 m.p.h., and skidded hundreds of feet, then cartwheeled on the frozen cornfield larger than a football field, until it rested at a downward angle, banking to the right against the fence. The force of the impact plowed a furrow deep into the cornfield for several hundred feet.
The plane crash, which is known as "The Day the Music Died,” killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson. The three rock and roll stars were thrown from the plane as it crashed.
Dr. Smiley determined that all aboard had died instantly upon impact, putting rumors to rest that the men had somehow survived and had passed away in the cold 18-degree snow storm, awaiting medical help that never arrived. But the reality of the men’s last moments was gruesome enough as it was. Two bodies were found within 20 feet of the plane, another had been tossed nearly 100 feet across the fence, and the pilot had to be cut from the severely bent wreckage. The blunt force trauma that each chest took on was enough to make their torsos react like a bowl of Jello.
According to forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass, who later examined the body of Richardson, “There are fractures from head to toe. Massive fractures. ... (he) died immediately. He didn’t crawl away. He didn’t walk away from the plane.”
Mr. Carroll Anderson, the manager of the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the last venue where the men had performed late that previous night, was called upon to identify the three bodies.
After getting permission from the authorities with the Civil Aeronautics Board, Deputy Sheriffs William McGill and Lowell Sandquist were responsible for removing the body of Peterson from the plane, then transporting all victims of the crash from the site.
The cause of the accident was cited as pilot error. Roger Peterson, just 21 years old, was a young pilot with four years’ flying experience. He was still working on his flight instruments training and was not rated for instrument flying. It was determined that his level of inexperience and the weather conditions of cold temps, ice, wind, and limited visibility, all contributed to the fatal accident.
Naturally, no one knew the plane was going to crash that night. All three passengers were just thankful to be off the old school bus they used to transport a group of around 25 musicians. Buddy had told his bandmates he just wanted to do some laundry, take a hot shower, and sleep in a warm bed.
J.P. was the oldest at 28 years old. Ritchie was just 17 and not even a legal adult. Whereas Buddy was 22 years old, with a wife back home and a baby on the way.
Had they known the fate they would have all endured just moments after they took off in that small plane on a snowy Iowa night, they would have certainly headed back to the cold, crowded old school bus that made up the Winter Dance Tour entourage with glee.
When the bus finally arrived in Fargo/Moorehead later that afternoon, the passengers, all young musicians from the bands comprised of Buddy, J.P., and Ritchie ensembles, learned of their friends’ heartbreaking fate.
To fully understand the magnitude of this tragedy, one has to simply imagine the early days of rock and roll, the death of three heroes to hundreds of thousands of teenagers from all over the world, and the great loss and deep grief that would follow.
The three young performers are remembered each year on the anniversary weekend of the accident in that Iowa cornfield, along with their music, by fans young and old at the Winter Dance Party at the Surf Ballroom. Now a museum as well as a dancehall, the Surf Ballroom is designated as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior, recognizing its enduring role in the history of American music.
Rob