The Day the Music Died: 48 Years Later

Recently, the son of J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) was granted permission to exhume his father's body to clear up any misconceptions as to the tragedy that took the life of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson the morning of February 3^rd 1959.

The four men perished when their plane crashed into a frozen corn field north of Clear Lake IA. Holly, Valens, and Richardson had just finished an engagement at the Surf Ballroom and wanted to get ahead to their next performance. They were a part of the 1959 GAC Winter Dance Party - a tour which was a veritable masterpiece of poor planning. The itinerary crossed all over the upper Midwest using the most awkward routes between venues, in the midst of a brutal winter, on converted buses that had defective heaters.

Needless to say, Holly and his group (the new Crickets with substitutes Waylon Jennings, Carl Bunch, and Tommy Allsup), were very anxious to escape the conditions for better sleep and laundry. Holly set up a flight out of Mason City the night of Feb. 2^nd. The Big Bopper took Jennings' place on the plane while Valens won Allsup's seat via a coin toss.

Pilot Roger Peterson, while a good pilot, was not instrument-certified to fly in adverse conditions. Weather that night was not good, a cold front was approaching and brewing up a snow storm. After takeoff (12:30AM CST) on the morning of February 3^rd, the plane crashed 5 miles north of Clear Lake in the farm field of Albert Juhl. The crash was a massive one - all were killed. Holly, Valens, and Richardson were all thrown from the plane and suffered fatal head and internal injuries. The pilot remained in the plane.

Many years later, many conspiracy theories have sprung up surrounding the crash. Some of these are:

1. Someone was shot on the plane. Holly carried a pistol with him, because most of these gigs paid him in cash and he needed to protect himself.
2. Holly was trying to fly the plane himself. Nearly impossible: the Beachcraft Bonanza has nearly no extraneous room up front. There would have been no room for Holly to comfortable take the controls from Peterson
3. Drugs were involved somehow - apparently candy wrappers were found at the scene and the inference was drawn.

Fast forward to 2007. JP Richardson, Jr., who ironically never knew his father since he was born after his father's death, won an inquest to have his father's body exhumed. The hope was to prove with certainty one way or another if foul play was involved. After a thorough re-examination, no foul play was ascertained. There was no evidence of drugs, or shooting of any kind.

No one will ever know what happened on that plane on that February night, but the bulk of the evidence still does suggest that the official record of pilot error still stands.