Wasn't it Waylon Jennings that was supossed to be on that flight also but he gave his seat to The Big Bopper at the last minute and took a different flight?
Yes.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly
Death
Following the February 2, 1959 performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new Crickets band (Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota. Carl Bunch did not take the flight as he was hospitalized for frostbite three days earlier. J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper" came down with the flu and didn't feel comfortable on the bus, so Jennings gave his plane seat to him. Ritchie Valens had never flown on a small plane and requested Allsup's seat. They flipped a coin, Valens called heads and won the toss. The four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza took off in extremely cold but otherwise good flying weather at around 1:05 A.M. but crashed only a few minutes after takeoff. The wreckage was discovered several hours later by the plane's owner, Jerry Dwyer, some 8 miles distant from the airport, on the property of Albert Juhl. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson, leaving Holly's pregnant bride, Maria Elena Holly, a widow (she miscarried soon after).
While theories yet abound as to the exact cause of the crash that killed Buddy Holly, an official determination of pilot error was rendered by the Civil Aeronautics Board (one of the predecessors of the Federal Aviation Administration).
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. In that crash, 65 died and 8 survived.
Buddy Holly's gravestoneHolly's funeral services were held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, and his body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city.
Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his name, Buddy Holley. It also features a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar. Downtown Lubbock has a "walk of fame" with plaques to various area artists such as Mac Davis, Maines Brothers Band and Waylon Jennings, with a life-size statue of Buddy, playing his Fender guitar, as its centerpiece. Downtown Lubbock also features Buddy Holly Avenue and the Buddy Holly Center, which is a museum dedicated to Texas art and music.
The tragic plane crash inspired Mike Berry & The Outlaws' single "Tribute to Buddy Holly" (1961), and singer Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie", which immortalized February 3 as "The Day the Music Died". Contrary to popular myth, "American Pie" was not the name of the ill-fated plane. The plane had no name, only the registration number N3794N.
The Surf Ballroom, a popular old-fashioned dance hall that dates to the height of Big Band Era, continues to put on shows, notably an annual Buddy Holly tribute on the anniversary of his last performances.
In 1997, Holly was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
What about the rumor the pilot was shot? An accident, of course.