Air Show Crash at CAF Dallas Air Show

[Flying10uk]

What are the chances of the Commemorative Airforce ever being able to find another B17 suitable to be made airworthy again? I know that there are various examples in museums but what about examples available for restoration to flight?

[Aragorn243]

They have several B-17's and another P-63. Still a massive loss to history.

[Bob Womack]

B-17 "Liberty Belle" developed a fuel tank fire in the port wing, was put down in a cornfield, and burned up.








Restoration to airworthiness is currently underway. That's amazing. Out of a total of forty-five survivors, there are currently nine airworthy examples, six known to be undergoing restoration to airworthiness, and five that are registered with the FAA that are currently static displays.

Bob

[limpetmine]

Tragic loss of life. I'll state if you want your kids of grandkids to see a B-17 or B-29 flying, you'd better do it in the next year or so. The age of WWII flight is coming to a close.

[CINDERS]

It seems the fighters were doing their circus whilst the B-17 and B-25 were at a lower level flying past the field.
From what I took from the video whilst listening to the commentator of it who is a member of the Dallas fraternity with a few thousand hours in WWII aircraft you can see what happens pretty clearly from the video from the airfield and the one from the shopping mall car park.
The B-17 was lower than the Cobra and in a slight bank to port if you can see this in the air field shot, the Cobra's layout being mid engined with a long nose gear means it actually has a long nose and the thickest part of the wing is right where the pilot is, restricting ones vision, having a car door type cockpit also adds to the restrictive views.
The author demonstrated this by video's he took flying a P-51 and the King Cobra on just how cluttered the forward and side views were in the latter compared to the rather open view from the P-51.

Back to the airfield shot; off to the right of the B-17 you can just make out the Cobra coming in at a fairly steep turn to port as the P-51's had already gone out of shot with their circus this placed from what I can gather the B-17 squarely underneath the Cobra's starboard wing or fuselage as he banked to port so the B-17 was obscured out of view of its pilot.
There was no avoiding action by either plane indicating neither saw each other.
So many questions will be asked but the main one is who worked out the degree of separation why not have the bombers at 1500Ft hard deck no higher and the fighters at 2500Ft no lower.
Very sad loss of life may their souls find peace and their families, to those that witnessed this tragedy I hope you do not lose the passion of these great displays, sadly a great historical artifact of the USA was lost hopefully another will take its place.
R.I.P.

[Sarge1998]

Restoration to airworthiness is currently underway. That's amazing. Out of a total of forty-five survivors, there are currently nine airworthy examples, six known to be undergoing restoration to airworthiness, and five that are registered with the FAA that are currently static displays.
Bob

That airport is a 20 minute drive for me, amazing to safely land and get everyone aboard evacuated before the plane was consumed by the flames.

[Sarge1998]

Which is complete red herring, given the P-63 was clearly banking inside the turn, so the B-17 was hidden below the cockpit floor in effect, so the blindspot the B-17 was in was nothing to do with the view out of the cockpit!

I've seen a comment from someone involved that the display airboss cleared the fighters into the lower bomber circuit, as had been the pre-show brief if it was clear to do so, which if true, means the airboss either didn't see/expect the B-17 to be there, or more likely cleared the P-51 through and hadn't seen the smaller front profile of the P-63 following it into the lower circuit as well.....

IMO this is the person most responsible for the tragedy, not thought out of what can go wrong will go wrong. All three pilots were highly qualified, I'm surprised someone didn't speak up during the pre-flight or while being cleared to enter the altitude at which the planes converged. That airboss/controller should never be allowed to hold that duty again, if it's within your control you are responsible. ALL future air shows should have strict regulations related to multiple aircraft and aircraft types flying in the same relative airspace. These are civilian professionals participating in a weekend hobby. Husband of my wife's HS BFF had VIP tickets to Friday's show but it was rained out, he was rescheduled for Sunday but the event was cancelled after this tragedy. My initial knee jerk reaction was to blame the Aircobra pilot, but I've shifted that to place the responsibility on the event air traffic controller.

[Aragorn243]

I tend to agree that it was the air boss's fault. I've been attending one of these for 20 plus years and have never seen the fighters at the same time as the bombers unless they were doing something very specific like and escort for photographs, they are always at the same relative speed also. I attend the Reading WWII weekend in Pennsylvania, and they have several CAF aircraft at every show. B-29's, B-24's, B-17's and the smaller two engine bombers. The four engine bombers generally simply circle around at relatively low altitudes and do photo passes just as this one apparently was doing. The other classes of planes typically do the same thing with a few exceptions with one or two of the fighter planes which perform stunts of various sorts, generally rolls, climbs, etc. But while this is happening, all the other planes are well clear of the airfield. It is kind of boring watching the slow passes but then these aircraft are 75 plus years old and few and far between so it's understandable not to put them at risk.

[Flying10uk]

With these sort of things when things start to go wrong they can go wrong very quickly and before people have time to react. Mid-air collisions were one of the unfortunate things that happened during WW2. With this accident once the authorities have got to the bottom of exactly what happened, hopefully, they can make it less likely to happen in the future.

In general terms and not saying that it happened in this case, for want of a better way of putting it, there can on occasions, I believe, be an element of "showing off" at airshows. Unfortunately luck can sometimes run out.

[CINDERS]

It was all supposed to have changed after the Italian debacle performing the pierced heart manoeuvre that air shows would be made safer.
Thankfully no one on the ground or outside the perimeter was killed or injured but who ever thought up that flight plan should find their way to jail as obviously the degree of separation between the groups and flight paths was just a sheer and total cluster eff up.

When you view the footage planes are basically going everywhere in the same direction but the height separation between the fighters and bombers is alarmingly narrow, almost as bad as an actual war sortie !!!!