WASHINGTON - US air accident investigators are reviewing a petition to reopen a probe into the February 1959 plane crash that killed rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. ‘Big Bopper’ Richardson. The iconic musicians and their 21-year-old pilot were killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza crashed soon after takeoff at night from Mason City, Iowa amid gusty wintery weather. Rock music enthusiasts remember the tragedy as ‘the day the music died,’ a phrase immortalised by Don McLean in his 1971 hit ‘American Pie.’
In a blog Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) acknowledged receiving a petition asking it to go back on the September 1959 findings of the US government’s Civil Aeronautics Board.