Tag: Air Crash Museum

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March 5, 1963 — Patsy Cline dies

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About a month after finishing recording her fourth, and, alas, final album Sentimentally Yours, Patsy Cline died in what has been described as “one of the worst wrecks in the country”. Also on the plane that night – and also dying in the crash – were her manager Randy Hughes and fellow musicians Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas.

Patsy Clines’s legacy is vast: at the time of her death, she was one of the most popular and best-selling artists in the world (and deservedly so). Her works remain perennially popular, both in terms of airplay and of being covered by the artists that followed her.

Patsy Cline II.jpg
By Four Star Records
derivative work: User:Dottiewest1fan – Patsy Cline – A Fan’s Tribute, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Air Crash Museum — The Dead Milkmen

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February 3, 1959 — Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper die in a plane crash

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The facts, as generally agreed upon, are these:

At appoximately 1AM on February 3, 1959, Holly, Valens and Richardson (‘the Big Bopper’) boarded a plane in Clear Lake, Iowa, intending to fly to their next concert, in Moorhead, Minnesota. The three, flown by pilot Roger Peterson, were killed a short time later when their plane crashed.

The major cause of the crash appears to have been a combination of poor weather conditions and pilot error. Peterson was not qualified for nighttime flights, and it also appears that he may have been given incorrect information regarding the weather conditions on that fateful night.

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May 10, 1941 — Rudolf Hess crashes in Scotland

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To this day, there is no clear explanation of his motives, but the facts in the case are these: on May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess – the third most powerful man in Nazi Germany behind Hitler and Goring, flew a plane to Scotland, where he crash landed and was taken into custody. He had come on a mission of peace, trying to secure an end to hostilities between Germany and the United Kingdom.

However, his offer was quickly disavowed by the German government, and Hess stripped of al authority. He spent the rest of the war as a p.o.w., and stood trial alongside the other surviving Nazis at Nuremberg.

It seems that he had experienced some sort of guilt-motivated nervous breakdown, causing him to undertake his quixotic mission. It remains an open question whether his guilt was about the war by itself, or also about the Holocaust.

Rudolf Hess - Bf 110D Werk Nr 3869 - Wreckage - Bonnyton Moor.jpg
By Ian Dunster – Imperial War Museum – picture scanned by me Ian Dunster 17:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC) from the The Flight Of Rudolf Hess article in the December 1986 issue of Aeroplane Monthly and credited to IWM., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Air Crash Museum — The Dead Milkmen