B17 crash at Dallas.

B-17’s rear fuselage was separated before it hit the ground. Plane is destroyed. I wish I hadn’t seen it.
 
kyleb said:
Got any more info? Link? Anything?
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Popped up on FB. It was at wings over Dallas airshow. The schedule shows a "bomber parade" for this afternoon.
 
Almost certainly the P-63 from San Marcos' CAF wing and Texas Raiders, the CAF's B-17. Just terrible.
 
After seeing the video of the midair I question so many things. I fly formation quite a bit and honestly I’m not sure how you screw up that bad.

It was like a AIM-120 locked on target. Unbelievable.
 
Saw a B-17 in the hanger in Conroe a few months ago. I’m guessing this is the same one? I know that one did a lot of air shows.
 
Oh man. :(
 
Skymac said:
After seeing the video of the midair I question so many things. I fly formation quite a bit and honestly I’m not sure how you screw up that bad.

It was like a AIM-120 locked on target. Unbelievable.
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And that was quite a good pilot…

Unbelievable.
 
RyanShort1 said:
And this is gonna have an earthquake effect on airshows, I believe.
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Yeah, having a couple of very clear, very disturbing videos will unfortunately maximize the media's coverage of this.
 
Wow. That was awful. It was like the pilot of the "incoming" plane didn't even see the B17.
 
SkyChaser said:
Wow. That was awful. It was like the pilot of the "incoming" plane didn't even see the B17.
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There's another view on twitter. Looks like the fighters were flying a racetrack pattern parallel to the B-17. The P-63 went much wider than the fighters it was following.
 
That last video made it look like his belly was mostly to the B-17 while in the turn - perhaps he lost SA with respect to where the B-17 would be and couldn't see it during the last few seconds?
 
Got lots of friends and acquaintances over there. Tough to see and hear about.
 
RyanShort1 said:
This is true. And this is gonna have an earthquake effect on airshows, I believe.
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Hopefully not one that would result in these background flights leaving the crowds. Hopefully any resulting changes wait until an investigation and lessons learned, such that they can be meaningful rather than knee jerk in response to public panic.

The age of social media sure changes the flow of news and public perception, though. No denying that.
 
Hard to watch, RIP condolences to all the families of those involved.
 
I knew I shouldn't have watched it and I did it anyway. My thoughts are with anyone affected by this.
 
kayoh190 said:
That last video made it look like his belly was mostly to the B-17 while in the turn - perhaps he lost SA with respect to where the B-17 would be and couldn't see it during the last few seconds?
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What you say is very likely, and it appears neither aircraft had eyeballs on the other due to that particular turn the P-63 was in, and that bad coincidence that the B-17 was approaching the point of collision from below. Here's a video you can slow down to 0.25 speed playback.

 
can see the bank angle a little better in this one. also, while I'm no formation OR airshow specialist, what exactly is going on here? looks like a free for all....

 
From another vantage point the P63 was supposed to be in trail with at least two other fighters and it went wide. So in addition to situational awareness loss, a real possibility that his eyeballs were directed to find the other fighters during the wide turn. Simply forgot where
the slower B17 was in the pattern. B17 could be a little too low, compared to the bomber following in trail. The preflight briefing will be a real point of focus too. About the most horrible video you can imagine. The B17 impacted less than three seconds after the mid-air, so at least the crew up front didn't even have time to really register what had happened with the startle effect. May they all rest in peace and may we all keep eyeballs out and our focus outside the cockpit with as complete a picture of the surroundings we can have.
 
Holy crap - in town for a work project and we talking earlier today about ducking out early to go see the show.

Dammit. Rest in peace brothers.
 
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