The Music dies in an Iowa cornfield
It was already snowing at Minneapolis and the general forecast for the area along the intended route indicated deteriorating weather conditions wrote the Civil Aeronautics Board investigators six months after the crash that killed Buddy Holly Ritchie Valens and J.P.the Big Bopper Richardson on this day in 1959.The ceiling and visibility were loweringand winds aloft were so high one could reasonably have expected to encounter adverse weather during the estimated two-hour flight.
All of this information was available to 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson if only he had asked for it.Instead he relied on an incomplete weather report and on the self-confidence of youth in making the decision to take off from Clear Lake Iowa shortly after midnight on February 3 1959.Untrained and uncertified in instrument-only flight Peterson was flying into conditions that made visual navigation impossible.
Considering all of these facts the investigating authorities concluded the decision to go seems most imprudent.The young pilots decision to go may well have been influenced by the eagerness of his almost equally young client Buddy Holly to spare himself and his backing band another miserable night in the unheated tour bus that had already sent his drummer to the hospital with symptoms of frostbite.Eleven days into a scheduled 23-stop tour Holly was fed up worn out and looking forward to a good nights rest in a warm bed before the next nights show in Moorhead Minnesota.In a similar mindset was a tired and ill J.P.
Richardson who played on the sympathies of Hollys guitarist to wangle his seat on the flight with Holly.That guitarist was future country legend Waylon Jennings.Meanwhile Tommy Allsup Hollys guitarist offered to flip a coin with up-and-coming young star Ritchie Valens for his seat.
And so it was that Petersons Beechcraft Bonanza carried not Holly and his band but Holly and two of the three other stars of the Winter Dance Party Tour on its ill-fated flight.Dion di Mucci was the fourth of those stars but he would join Allsup Jennings and the various other tour musicians on the freezing bus ride ahead.The plane would crash and Holly Richardson Valens and Peterson would be dead within five minutes of takeoff as the direct result of pilot error.Only the next morning when Waylon Jennings learned what had happened hours earlier would he recall his final good-natured exchange with Buddy Holly.
Well said Holly when he learned of Jennings swap with the Big Bopper I hope your old bus freezes over.Jennings response Well I hope your plane crashes.
