Time after time there are incidents with entertainers, sports personalities, etc, who when starting to earn a bit have a "manager" in charge of arranging and booking private charter aircraft, which all sounds exciting and big boys' stuff, but in fact they go for what they do elsewhere, get quotes and go for the one with the lowest figure in the bottom right corner. Due diligence and such like goes out of the window, all charter aircraft are perfect and professional, surely. It doesn't help that their commitments lead to expectations of 24x7x365 operation.
Buddy Holly preferred to go by air that night because their group's charter tour bus, organised by the same manager, was likewise an old heap from the cheapest quote, tight seating and in winter overnight conditions it had no effective heater.