Fifty years ago, three young musicians boarded a four-seat propeller airplane after playing a show at a Midwest ballroom.

They flew in a storm to avoid another overnight ride on an unheated bus during an arduous midwinter tour. By morning’s light, searchers found the wreckage on a cold, windswept Iowa farm. The crushed fuselage held a crumpled body. Three others lay in a snowy field.

(More from Tom Hawthorn in The Globe and Mail)

Tom Hawthorn adds:

“The editors chopped it a bit, so I’ve posted the ‘director’s cut’ on my website and my blog. You can read that version here.”