Fresh from their triumphant UK tour, Metallica had headed once more for Scandinavia where they'd played three shows at the Olympen in Lund (September 24, 1986), the Skedsmohallen (September 25, 1986) in Oslo and at the Sonahallen in Stockholm (September 26, 1986). It was approaching dawn on Saturday, the 27th of September 1986, and Metallica's two tour buses were on their way to do a fourth show in Copenhagen. The were traveling along a god forsaken road between the Scandinavian cities of Stockholm and Copenhagen. Apart from these vehicles, the route was deserted, there was no one else traveling at that early hour of the morning. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, just before dawn, at about 5:15 am, one of the coaches swerved violently to its right and started careening wildly down the wrong side of the road. It was out of control, and a crash was inevitable. On board were the four band members, along with drum tech Flemming Larsen, guitar assistants John Marshall and Aidan Mullen, and road manager Bobby Schneider.

John Marshall: "We were on a two-lane road. The bus went off to the right, and I think the driver over corrected, cranking the wheel to the left to get us back on the road. The wheel grabbed, and the bus swung completely around. During this time, the tail of the bus was sliding, kind of fishtailing around and bouncing on its wheels. That was right when we all started to wake up. I think I bounced right out of my bunk. The bunks were like trays with foam in them. The foam was held in place by a wooden lip. When the bus started rocking, my back bounced across that lip. Afterwards, I could barely walk, it hurt so bad. The bus eventually slid to the dirt alongside the road. When the wheels caught, the bus rolled over on its side."

The bus's brief but horrific excursion came to a halt some 60 feet further up the tarmac. By this time, though, the vehicle was on its side and lying in a ditch by the side of the road near the small Swedish town of Ljungby.

During the unavoidable confusion that followed, the vast majority of the overturned bus's passengers managed to scramble free of the wreckage. Mullen and Larsen, who'd slept in right-side bunks, were pinned under the rubble for nearly three hours before the fire department jacked up the debris and rescued them. Those that emerged included three of the four members of the band. In truth, the survivors had been extremely lucky, as they'd all some how managed to escape with little more than minor injuries and shock. Lars broke a finger, James only suffered from minor superficial injuries and Kirk's eye was blackened. Kirk, who'd blacked out after being thrown from his bunk, snapped to consciousness and made his way through a side emergency hatch. Bobby Schneider, the tour manager, dislocated his arm, and another crew member had contusions.

Swedish police arriving on the scene of the accident immediately arrested the driver as a matter of routine. They later released him without charging him after further investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was black ice on a nasty bend in the road. This episode was simply a tragic and cruel accident that killed the way Metallica was building.

"We were all sitting out there in 35 degree weather, with me in my socks and underwear before someone gave me a blanket. I remember Kirk and James yelling at the driver. By then, everyone had begun to realize that something was wrong with Cliff. I remember James walking up the road a bit to see if there was ice on the road, because the driver had claimed he'd slid over a sheet of ice. Kirk was crying."
---John Marshall---

Unfortunately, however, there had been one fatality in the accident. The deceased individual turned out to be one of the group. Cliff was sleeping on the top level of the right rear bunk in the bus when the bus started to roll and he was thrown out of the bus window. The bunks had toppled like match sticks, teetering into one another and collapsing into what resembled a pile of kindling.He was crushed by the bus in the accident and died immediately on contact. So, tragically, in the short space of those few dreadful seconds on that lonely Swedish road, Metallica's dreamlike existence was suddenly transformed into a hellish nightmare. Their 24 year-old bass player, Cliff Burton, was dead.

"I saw the bus lying right on him. I saw his legs sticking out. I freaked. The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people. I just went, 'Don't fucking do that!' I already wanted to kill the guy. I don't know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice. All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn't alive anymore."

"I just recall our tour manager Bobby saying, 'Okay, let's get the band together and take them back to the hotel.' The only thing I could think was, 'The band? No way! There ain't no band. The band is not "the band" right now. It's just three guys."
--- James Hetfield - 1993

The dazed group dealt with their anxiety in the manner they were most familiar with: drinking. James broke two hotel windows and screamed, venting his rage. Kirk and his guitar tech, John Marshall, were so shaken that they left the light on in their room that night. On September 29th, James, Lars and Kirk returned to the United States.

"I wasn't too angry in the beginning. I was obviously grieving, but the anger started setting in when I realized that it's not new that people in rock-n-roll die, but usually it's self-inflicted in terms of excessive drink or drug abuse. He had nothing to do with it. It's so useless. Completely useless."
--- Lars Ulrich - January 1987

The gap left by Cliff's death widely spread across the pages of tributes run by the music press the week after the tragedy. In Kerrang!, for example, advertisements were taken by friends and fans alike; a bleak, black double-page spread ran messages from the Zazulas ("The Ultimate Musician, The Ultimate Headbanger, The Ultimate Loss, A Friend Forever"), and Anthrax ("Bell-Bottoms Rule!! Laugh it up, We Miss You"), while Music For Nations also took out a page ad which simply read: "Cliff Burton 1962 - 1986." The pain ran deep.

Gen Howards remembers: "When the Puppets tour had finished, I waited 'til the band went to the European tour and then I went on vacation to Cornualles. We all were very happy on what was happening, 'specially, that Metallica was becoming one of the most popular metal bands. We all had worked a lot in this, and then before our eyes everything was was going ok, and the future hadn't seemed better. Then a Wednesday morning, I take a "Sounds" volume, I opened it, and I almost shocked. It was a really beat. . . incredibly painful. . ."

Cliff Burtons body was flown back to the US. His memorial service was held October 7, 1986. Services were held in his hometown of Castro Valley. At the conclusion of his memorial service "Orion" was played.

Cliff was cremated and his ashes were spread at one of his favorite hang-outs, the Maxwell Ranch. In the final ceremony, a group of close friends and family formed a circle around Cliff's ashes, and one by one, each person walked towards the middle of the circle, took a handful of his ashes, said something about Cliff and then threw his ashes in to the earth.

His family and friends remembered him as a "world class local boy" with a love for Johann Sebastian Bach, Mexican food and his hometown. His parents said he was "an appreciative and thoughtful son. Because of his performing, he'd sleep all day and stay up all night and never wake us up. Once, a little boy came up to the door, early in the morning and wanted Cliff to sign his shirt. So Cliff staggered to the door and said 'Sure, of course I'll sign it.'" Connie, his sister, said, "I once called him up and said 'How do you like being a rock star?', and he was furious. He asked me never to refer to him that way again." At the conclusion of his memorial service "Orion" from the band's 'Master of Puppets' album, was played. The elaborate instrumental made a fitting tribute for the young bassist, since, as James Hetfield recalled, Burton was Metallica's most educated musician and "Orion" was largely his composition.

         

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