Tommy Allsup, the...

...second-luckiest man ever*, died at age 85. From his New York Times obit:

Tommy Allsup, a guitarist best known for losing a coin toss that kept him off the plane that later crashed and killed the rock ’n’ roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, died on Wednesday in Springfield, Mo. 

Tommy Allsup was a member of Holly’s band when Holly and the others, who were on tour, died in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 3, 1959.

Mr. Allsup flipped a coin to see whether he or Valens would get a seat on the plane. He lost and took a bus to the next stop on the tour.

* The luckiest man ever was Tsutomu Yamaguchi.