All of the deceased have been identified....may they RIP
All six victims killed when a B-17 Flying Fortress and P-63 Kingcobra collided at the Wings Over Dallas World War II Airshow on Saturday have been identified.
www.foxnews.com
Very tragic loss to their families and friends.
I have watched the various footage several times now...there is alot of footage from varied angles which will be a great help to the investigation team.
I cannot help but think back to seeing footage of the B17 during wartime flight when returning from missions. They are built like brick outhouses, totally over engineered. They would come home to their UK bases with chunks of airframe missing...and I mean enormous chunks missing....one even came home without a crew. They saved alot of aircrew lives thanks to being built so tough.
When doing display flying, you always have it in the back of your mind when doing formation "what if so'n'so misses their mark"..."what if so'n'so times their close in wrong"
When the B17 was working and was damaged by enemy fire (and the occasional friendly fire/collision from other aircraft in the formation when on big wing missions) they were at a sufficient height that allowed the crew to bail out....the crew bailed out of the now famous "ghost" that made it back home without them.
Display flying is low level...very low level. Air temperature plays a part in how you fly your warbird. The warmer the air temperature, the higher the RPM. If anything goes wrong.....you have no height on your side. You have nothing on your side.
One moment all is going well....the next you go through a mental and emotional backflip.
I doubt that the gentleman in the P63 knew what happened. It would probably have been instantaneous, his last vision might have been the fuselage of the B17 in a blink of his eyes.
On the other hand, the gentlemen onboard the B17 will have initially had confusion as to why the aircraft was not behaving right........followed by determination to follow the display pilot's golden rule "GET AWAY FROM THE CROWD LINE!".......followed by the realisation that all was lost and there was nothing left to do.
Typed out it sounds like it would take several minutes......infact its just seconds. The B17 crew will have known that they would not be going home that day within seconds but they did everything in their power to avoid ground casualties...such as the Stearman on the taxiway and B29 that was awaiting take off clearance.
There are many online sources of transcripts and recordings from past accidents, the discussions tween crew and crew to ATC in the last minutes of a flight before the inevitable radio silence. When you listen to the transmissions, its very very rare that expletives or panic are heard. Even when the crew know all is lost, they remain calm and focussed on their job....(one of the most harrowing tapes is the JAL 123).
That B17 crew did their job and flew their mortally wounded warbird all the way to the end and they did everything they could to prevent more lives being lost in the process.
Just like thousands of pilots did during the war and like hundreds of display, commercial airliner and private pilots who are no longer with us.
Alot of things have to happen to cause any accident....putting the jigsaw of pieces together will take time and diligence by the investigators
The toll would have been significantly higher had the crew of the B17 just let her go to ground, she didn't just go to ground, they flew her out of harm's way, they manhandled her, wrestled her away from that Stearman and B29 and the crowd both at Redbird and those on the surrounding highways and buildings.
The crews on board the P63 and B17 did their job. They saved lives by sacrificing their own in a no-win situation for themselves. Within seconds of the collision they knew that they would not be going home, they did what all airmen do in that situation.
I hope that people realise and understand that those six gentlemen not only died doing something that they loved to do but that they did everything humanly possible to prevent further deaths on the ground. Their deaths are a tremendous loss to their loved ones but they also need to be remembered by everyone in some way at Redbird cos without their actions when all was lost for them, they made sure no-one else would be lost.
