And then there are 8 left flying.

[Gargoile]

Sad day today. The world lost another B-17 due to human error while flying in Texas. With this crash there are 8 left that are air worthy in the world. It was taken out by a P-63 as the P-63 could not see the B-17 as it was in a lefthand banked turn at the same altitude. Reports are 6 people died in this accident.

 

[sdkid]

Somebody caught the picture of a lifetime that will haunt him (or her) for a lifetime....

 

[SJGUSMC21]

So sad and such a tragic accident. Those life's lost are irreplaceable. And to lose two flying legends at once, is sad as well.

 

[Arjun]

How did the pilot(s) not see that coming?

 

[CCTVCam]

How did the pilot(s) not see that coming?

Looking at the longer clip it appears the rear of the 2 P63 Pilots failed to look to his right properly before entering into the banking turn. It appears he was in level flight with the B-17 ahead of him before commencing the turn which should have enabled him to see it. Momentary lapse, fatigue, other factors? Once in the bank, it would be impossible for him to see it because the body of the P63 would block the view in that direction. That moments failure appears to have cost everyone their lives.

 

[Gargoile]

How did the pilot(s) not see that coming?

The P-63 has a horrible cockpit view and many have been lost due to this reason alone. There was another P-63 flying just seconds before the B-17 if you look at the one video if it flying over the shopping center. The P-63 that hit the B-17 was most likely using the front P-63 (that was before the B-17) as a point of reference in its left banked turn. Once in the turn the P-63 could only see sky on its right side and could not see the horizon nor the other aircraft.

If the two P-63's were flying in formation, this accident would not have happened. But the fact it was trailing behind the other and it couldn't see the B-17.

There were 13,000+ B-17's made and I'm hearing the report that maybe only 5 are left airworthy now. The sounds of a radial engine is unique and once you hear them you know what type of bird it is.

I had the Liberty Bell fly over my house many years ago many times a day as it was giving rides to people over the Blueridge mountains. Sadly, the Liberty Bell was lost when it developed a fuel leak fire and landed in a farmer's field and the fire department would not go out in the field to extinguish the fire and the bird was a loss. But there is an effort to bring her back to airworthiness again.

 

[sdkid]

My hindsight commentary would be that given the speed differences between the aircraft, there should have been altitude separation rules in place, or they should have matched airspeed.