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Cliff Burton was tragically killed when Metallica's tour bus crashed between Stockholm and Copenhagen. September 27, 1986. The tragedy occurred early on the morning of September 27, 1986, near the small town of Dörarp, just north of Ljungby in southern Sweden. Metallica was riding a wave of critical and commercial acclaim on their European tour supporting Master of Puppets. They had just played the Solnahallen arena in Stockholm the night before and were traveling south toward Copenhagen for their next scheduled show. The circumstances surrounding Burton’s sleeping location remain one of rock music's most haunting twists of fate. The bunks on the band’s tour bus were cramped and uncomfortable. On the evening of September 26, Burton and guitarist Kirk Hammett decided to settle who would get first choice of bunks by drawing cards from a deck. Burton drew the Ace of Spades. He selected the bunk near the window that Hammett had been occupying, while Hammett moved up toward the front of the bus. Shortly before 7:00 a.m., the tour bus skidded violently off the road on the E4 highway and flipped onto the grass embankment. Burton was thrown through the window, and the rolling vehicle landed directly on him. Attempts to lift the bus with a crane failed when the cable snapped, dropping the vehicle back down. Burton died at the scene at just 24 years old. The driver blamed the crash on a patch of black ice, though James Hetfield walked miles along the roadway in the cold searching for ice and found none.