Dion* didn’t want to pay, but Waylon Jennings was anxious to fly with Buddy, but exchanged his seat with J.P.
Richardson (The Big Bopper) because he had a cold. Tommy Allsup was included in the group, but Ritchie Valens
offered to flip him for the seat since he was ill. Valens won the coin toss.
*According to Dion in a 2009 interview , it was Valens, not Richardson who had fallen ill, so Valens and Dion flipped a
coin for the seat. Dion claims that he won the toss, but ultimately decided that since the $36 fare (equivalent to
US$300 in today's money) equaled the mo nthly rent his parents paid for his childhood apartment, he could not justify
the extravagance.
Holly, after hearing that his bandmates had given away their plane seats and chose to take the bus rather than flying,
joked, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up again." Waylon Jennings as ornery as ever jokingly shot back, "Well, I
hope your ol' plane crashes." Those words haunted Jennings for the rest of his life.
The plane took off around 1:00 AM from Mason City Airport into a blinding snowstorm and crashed only minutes later
in a cornfield, killing all three musicians and the pilot and was found the next day about a quarter mile from the
nearest country road.
It was concluded that the primary cause of the crash was pilot error due to the pilot’s inability to accurately read
attitude indicator in the poor weather conditions. The pilot may have read the gyroscope backwards and thought that
the plane was gaining altitude when it was actually descending.
J. P." Richardson Jr. known as The Big Bopper, was a musician, songwriter, and disc jockey whose big rockabilly
look, style, voice, and exuberant personality made him an early rock and roll star. Valens was a rock & roll pioneer
and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement. Holly is often described as the most influential of the early rock and
roll musicians.
The death of these 3 talented performers is now commonly referred to as "the day the music died" after Don McLean
immortalized the tragedy with his 1972 hit “American Pie.”
OUR VALLEY SANTA CLARITA
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