10 Biggest WTF Moments In '80s Rock Music
5. The Metallica Bus Accident
In 1986, thrash metal band Metallica were flying high.
They were three albums in to their legendary career, having just dropped the absolute stonker that was Master of Puppets. With a successful album came a huge world tour, which took them to Sweden in September of that year.
Sadly, this would be the final stop for bass player Cliff Burton.
Whilst on the road one night, the tour bus carrying the band skidded off the road and flipped over. Burton, who was sleeping on the top bunk, was thrown out of the vehicle's window and crushed to death.
Burton was just 24 years old when he died, and left a huge hole in the group. He was honoured on the band's next album ...And Justice For All with his final songwriting credit on the ominously-titled To Live Is to Die.
The death of anyone so young is always a tragedy, but the freak nature of Cliff's death just makes this whole thing even harder to swallow.
Metallica are a band with plenty of dark days in their history, but this has to be one of the very bleakest.