MiamiCubano
El Martillo (My Boxing Name)
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2003
- Messages
- 3,875
I was waitin' to see if anyone was going to post this and, perhaps I missed it, but it appears to have gone unmentioned. So:
February 3, 1959. Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, Ritchie Valens. "The Winter Dance Party."
Holly had begun a solo tour with other notable performers, including Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. After a performance in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Riverside Ballroom, on 1 February the tour moved on to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959. Afterwards, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota, enroute to play the next leg of the Winter Dance Party tour at the Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carl Bunch missed the flight as he had been hospitalized with frostbite three days earlier. The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he was recovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens was still signing autographs at the concert site when Allsup walked in and told him it was time to go. Valens begged for a seat on the plane. Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat. Allsup lost.
The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:05 A.M., but crashed a few minutes later. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. Holly's body, along with those of Valens and Richardson, was thrown from the wreckage. Holly and Valens lay 17 feet south of the wreckage and Richardson was thrown around 40 feet to the north of the wreckage. The pilot's body remained in the wreckage. Without any doubt, all had died on impact, with the plane hitting the ground at 170 mph. While theories abound as to the exact cause of the crash, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport, killing 65.
As a post-script, Waylon was plagued by guilt (and feelings of responsibility) for this tragic incident. In his 1996 autobiography, Jennings retold the story that after Jennings had given up his seat, Holly had jokingly told Jennings, "I hope your ol' bus freezes up!" Jennings shot back facetiously, "I hope your damn plane crashes!"
February 3, 1959. Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, Ritchie Valens. "The Winter Dance Party."
Holly had begun a solo tour with other notable performers, including Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. After a performance in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Riverside Ballroom, on 1 February the tour moved on to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959. Afterwards, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new back-up band (Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota, enroute to play the next leg of the Winter Dance Party tour at the Armory in Moorhead, Minnesota. Carl Bunch missed the flight as he had been hospitalized with frostbite three days earlier. The Big Bopper asked Jennings for his spot on the four-seat plane, as he was recovering from the flu. Ritchie Valens was still signing autographs at the concert site when Allsup walked in and told him it was time to go. Valens begged for a seat on the plane. Allsup pulled a 50 cent coin out of his pocket and the two men flipped for the seat. Allsup lost.
The plane took off in light snow and gusty winds at around 12:05 A.M., but crashed a few minutes later. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles from the airport on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. Holly's body, along with those of Valens and Richardson, was thrown from the wreckage. Holly and Valens lay 17 feet south of the wreckage and Richardson was thrown around 40 feet to the north of the wreckage. The pilot's body remained in the wreckage. Without any doubt, all had died on impact, with the plane hitting the ground at 170 mph. While theories abound as to the exact cause of the crash, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport, killing 65.
As a post-script, Waylon was plagued by guilt (and feelings of responsibility) for this tragic incident. In his 1996 autobiography, Jennings retold the story that after Jennings had given up his seat, Holly had jokingly told Jennings, "I hope your ol' bus freezes up!" Jennings shot back facetiously, "I hope your damn plane crashes!"