or this one
The plane took off at around 12:55 AM Central Time. Just after 1:00 AM Central Time, Mr. Hubert Dwyer, a commercial pilot and owner of the ill-fated Bonanza, observing from a platform outside the tower, "saw the tail light of the aircraft gradually descend until out of sight".
Peterson had told Dwyer he would file a flight plan with Air Traffic Control by radio after departure. When he did not call, the Air Traffic Control communicator, at Dwyer's request, repeatedly tried to reach him but failed. [7]
By 3:30 AM, when Hector Airport in Fargo had not heard from Peterson, Dwyer contacted authorities and reported the aircraft missing.
Around 9:15 AM, Dwyer took off in another small plane to fly Peterson's intended route. A short time later, he spotted the wreckage in a cornfield belonging to Albert Juhl, about five miles (8 km) northwest of the airport (43°13′12″N 93°23′0″W / 43.22°N 93.383333°W / 43.22; -93.383333Coordinates: 43°13′12″N 93°23′0″W / 43.22°N 93.383333°W / 43.22; -93.383333).
Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson, who drove the performers to the airport and witnessed the plane's takeoff, made positive identifications of the performers.
The Bonanza was at a slight downward angle and banked to the right when it struck the ground at around 170 miles per hour (270 km/h). The plane tumbled and skidded another 570 feet (170 m) across the frozen landscape before the crumpled ball of wreckage piled against a wire fence at the edge of Juhl's property. The bodies of Holly and Valens lay near the plane, Richardson was thrown over the fence and into the cornfield of Juhl's neighbor Oscar Moffett, and Peterson remained trapped inside. [7]
All four had died instantly from "gross trauma" to the brain, the county coroner Ralph Smiley declared. Holly's death certificate detailed the multiple injuries which show that he surely died on impact:
The body of Charles H. Holley was clothed in an outer jacket of yellow leather-like material in which four seams in the back were split almost full length. The skull was split medially in the forehead and this extended into the vertex region. Approximately half the brain tissue was absent. There was bleeding from both ears, and the face showed multiple lacerations. The consistency of the chest was soft due to extensive crushing injury to the bony structure.[...] Both thighs and legs showed multiple fractures.[8]
Investigators concluded that the crash was due to a combination of poor weather conditions and pilot error. Peterson, working on his Instrument Rating, was still taking flight instrumentation tests and was not yet rated for flight into weather that would have required operation of the aircraft solely by reference to his instruments rather than by means of his own vision. The final Civil Aeronautics Board report noted that Peterson had taken his instrument training on airplanes equipped with an artificial horizon attitude indicator and not the far-less-common Sperry Attitude Gyro on the Bonanza. Critically, the two instruments display the aircraft pitch attitude in the exact opposite manner; therefore, the board thought that this could have caused Peterson to think he was ascending when he was in fact descending. They also found that Peterson was not given adequate warnings about the weather conditions of his route, which, given his known limitations, might have caused him to postpone the flight
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