Reuters and the Associated Press reported on the 13th that several deaths were confirmed due to a mid-air collision between two obsolete aircraft at the Dallas Air Show.
According to local law enforcement authorities, six people have been counted so far in connection with an accident in which a Boeing B-17 bomber and a Bell P-63 King Cobra fighter collided in flight at the ‘Wings Over Dallas Air Show’ held at Dallas Airport, Texas the day before. The injured were not identified.
It was reported that 4,000 spectators who were watching the event at the time were unharmed.
No official identities have yet been released, but Keller County Mayor Amin Mizzani said that “Terry Barker, an Army veteran and retired pilot, was in the B-17” and that he passed away in the crash.
The Air Force Memorial Association (CAF), which hosted the air show, explained that the B-17, which has a large body, usually has four to five people on board, and the P-63 is generally operated by a single pilot.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has launched an investigation into the cause of the accident, plans to first find out whether the flight route was properly controlled at the air show.
NTSB commissioner Michael Graham said at a press conference, “We need to find out why these planes stayed at the same altitude at the time of the accident.”
International Air Show Association (ICAS) president John Cooderhey pointed out that the air show plan would have been thoroughly reviewed through a rehearsal flight the day before the accident, and said, “I watched the video (at the time of the accident), but even as I have been doing this for 25 years, I can’t understand what happened. couldn’t,” he said.
The aircraft participating in this air show were active during World War II. The B-17 was the main bomber for the US Army, called the ‘fortress in the sky’, and the P-63 was also used in several battlefields.
After the two planes crashed at 1:20 pm the previous day, a video was posted on Twitter showing large flames and black smoke billowing from the ground.
This is not the first time an aircraft has been involved in an air show accident in the United States.
In Hartford, Connecticut, in 2019, a B-17 bomber crashed due to pilot negligence, killing seven people. At the 2011 Reno Air Show in Nevada, a P-51 Mustang fell in front of a crowd due to a fuselage defect, killing 11 people and injuring 74 others.