Will officials consider drunk monkey theory in Buddy Holly death?

It was perhaps the greatest tragedy in contemporary popular music. On a blustery winter's day in November 1971, Don McLean released the single "American Pie" and we've been stuck with that miserable sub-Dylan piece of shit ever since.  

Almost as horrendous was the event that inspired McLean, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, JD (the Big Bopper) Richardson and 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson were all killed in a small plane crash outside Mason City, Iowa in the early hours of February 3, 1959.

Today it's being reported that U.S. transportation safety investigators are considering a request to launch a new inquest into the crash, which was blamed on Peterson's inexperience.

A pilot by the name of L.J. Coon believes it's time that Peterson's name was cleared.

Based on his private investigation, Coon has urged the National Transport and Safety Board to consider other factors in the accident, including, according to the Guardian, "possible weight imbalance in the craft [and] newly installed flight instruments, as well as a possible commotion among the passengers shortly after take-off."

Rumours that shots were fired after takeoff from a gun allegedly belonging to Holly were allayed when the Big Bopper's body was exhumed in 2007.

The theory that Holly allowed his drunk monkey to pilot the Beechcraft Bonanza remain similarly unproven, despite the striking film evidence below. 

Don McLean, meanwhile, remains alive and well.