Death
After the February 2, 1959, performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly, Richardson and Valens flew out of the Mason City airport in a small plane that Holly had chartered. Valens was on the plane because he had won a coin toss. The plane, a three-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza, departed for Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed shortly after takeoff in a snow storm. The crash killed all three passengers and the pilot Roger Peterson. At 17, Valens was the youngest to die on the flight. The event, along with Buddy Holly's death, inspired singer Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie," and immortalized February 3 as "The Day the Music Died." Ritchie Valens is interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.
Read more about this topic: Ritchie Valens
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“For ‘tis not in mere death that men die most.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)