15. February 3, 1959: The day the music died
On February 3, 1959 a Lockheed Electra flying from Chicago’s Midway International Airport bound for LaGuardia in New York crashed into the East River. The official cause of the crash was eventually found to be pilot error. Of the 73 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft only eight survived. Beyond New York and Chicago the crash drew little news coverage following the immediate announcements, as it was overcome by another news story which drew national attention for weeks. It was another aviation accident, the crash of a small, privately owned airplane in a remote field in Iowa. In that crash three passengers and the airplane’s pilot were killed. How an accident which killed four displaced the news of an accident which killed 65 on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers is explained by the nature of the passengers in the former.
They were Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J. P. Richardson, known as the Big Bopper. The deaths of three singers while on their Winter Tour shocked their fans, and all three of the victims (the pilot was also killed) quickly became the stuff of legends. The myths include who was on the plane and why, who should have been, wasn’t and why, and even whether the accident was something more than an accident. The crash became the subject of song, television specials, and films and earned the sobriquet The Day the Music Died in the 1971 hit by Don McLean American Pie. Monuments to the performers were erected on the site of the crash. As for the crash of the Lockheed Electra the same day; the flight number, 320, was not retired as are usually those of fatal crashes. Instead it was assigned to another route, from Dallas to Norfolk and remains in use in 2018.