Just a terrible thing in all ways. Bomber Pilot had zero chance to do anything with that impact.

Wife just showed me that. Hate it for them and the people that had to watch it.

Prayers!

Damn!

Maybe one of our High Performance type Aviators can coach us on the rules of the game at airshows but the Fighter Pilot just 100% Fk'd up from my novice perspective

Yikes JFC.

That’s horrible. RIP aviators.

Dios mio is right,

that's about f'd up for sure.

How does that even happen?

RIP

Looks like the fighter was belly-up to the B-17 and just didn’t see it. It didn’t look like he was trying to use turn radius to join on the B-17 and there really didn’t seen to be any hard maneuver to miss it. Sad deal

That simple perspective makes it much less negligent on the Fighter as my initial reaction was. His turn radius and Angle was clear when he rolled into it. Thank you.

Dios mío!

Horrible sight. No chance of survival for any aboard either one.

Looked like (first impression only) that the P-63 was turning into and hit the B-17. Don't know what he was supposed to be doing, but if he allowed the bomber to get below him and thus out of sight, he screwed up big time. You NEVER put the other plane below you when making an overtake like that.

Concur that it looked like it was supposed to be a turning rejoin or passby. It should have been flown to pass behind the bomber, never losing sight of it.

Thanks Rocky. I knew you guys had relative perspective.

On the other video there are two other fighters that cross the B-17’s flight path out in front of the B-17 and chances are, that’s where the fighter’s eyes are focused and the B-17 is under his nose. Neither probably saw the other….

Which B-17 was it? There are a few that make the rounds of airshows selling rides. We bought Dad a ride on "Aluminum Overcast" at Lebanon Tennessee in 1997, 52 years after his final flight as a B-17 pilot. I repaired a transmission on a tug they needed to move the planes around the night before the show and ended up getting a free ride and a few minutes' left seat time on the same plane. Sharing a bomber ride with my father- - - -priceless!

Tough to watch.

Perfect blind spot approach by the fighter tho not by intent I’m sure. I hope it was as instantaneous as it looks for the heavy pilot.
God bless both.

Osky

That is horrible, prayers for all involved, all that saw it happen, and families of the deceased.

I just got to walk through Texas Raider last weekend and take some pictures. Watched the crew fire up the engines and take off. They were at the local Veterans celebration show last weekend. I hope it wasn't them. Got to see Aluminum Overcast a few years ago. Terrible thing, may have been several crew aboard.

This is so sad.

Does anyone know the registration numbers of the aircraft involved?

There were only 5 or 6 B-17s still airworthy. The Confederate Air Force use to have a few. I almost bought a ride on one in the late 90s. With a young family and payments, I couldn’t justify the $400.

Ron

Not many in those crews these days, nor pilots.

Back when the CAF was in Midland, I had a friend who was heavily involved with them. They knew their crew and pilots were dwindling due to age.

He asked if I'd be willing to train to fly for them, as I'd accumulated quite a few flight hours at that time, but I couldn't take the time and expense personally to do that.

Sad day.

There'll come a day when don't see them anymore.

Man,.....that's terrible. You would think that they would have a bit more coordination than that.

Santa Maria !

Thanks, Bristoe.

Hate to see stuff like that. Really hate it.

Yea

this really sucks

Six people died from the reports I see

Can't see through the bottom of the cockpit. Hurt to watch.

The Commemorative Air Force has owned and flown Texas Raiders for twenty-five years at least, maybe a lot longer.

I walked through the "Texas Raider" at the Millville Airport back in '83.

Such a tragedy, both for the crews and their families, and an irreplaceable icon of WW II history.

May they Rest in Peace, and may God comfort the families.

Air shows are dangerous… especially for spectators

I was hoping this was a joke when I saw the thread 🙁

Barry, how long ago was that ???
About 15 years ago, One of my best friends’s Dad got killed training someone to fly for the Confederate Air Force in Midland. He was a former Nam fighter pilot than flew for the CAF and did their training. From what I heard, the guy he was training put the plane into a nose dive that they couldn’t pull out of. Bad Deal. The Midland CAF did a flyover for his funeral.

Sad deal.

RIP

You can in an F-35 😁

B-17 pilot was a friend of my brother.

He seemed to be relatively straight and level.

Not sure what was going on with the 63.

Damn sorry to hear that.
Absolutely sucks.

So it was Texas Raiders. RIP men. They were all so nice, showed me through the plane along with several others and their kids.

Captain obvious here why were they at the same elevation, should have been at least 150 ,200 feet apart, did someone drift ???

norm

My nephew took a ride on one of those B-17’s a few years ago. Don’t know if it was that one.

That’s horrible, so sad to see this.

My wife and I were out to eat at an outdoor restaurant by Galveston Bay just two weeks ago and I heard the distinctive sound of radial engines. A B-17 flew over and it most likely was Texas Raiders as it is seen in the area from time to time. I was always in awe of seeing it and remarked to my wife how fortunate we were to have seen it so many times as they are so few now left flying. So very sad to learn of this. A terrible loss of life and loss of an historical artifact.

'
Videos from several different sources and locations.

6 perished.

RIP men.

According to this there are 8 B-17s still airworthy.

Absolutely unreal that this could happen! I feel for those families!

Very sad

Other than the loss of life, the other sad part is we have lost 3 airworthy B-17’s in very recent years.

1). First the “Liberty Belle” to an engine fire. She landed safely in a field and everyone got off, but the fire trucks couldn’t reach her and she was a total loss.

2). Then “Nine O’ Nine” from the Collings Foundation was involved in a crash after a mechanical issue. There is some debate on whether the pilot made some mistakes (no emergency was declared), but all on board perished.

3). Now “Texas Raiders” with a mid-air collision. Loss of all on board.

Really sad all the way around!

so very sad, and it could have been prevented. Gods comfort for the survivors.

Bad day. Sad to see another 17 go.

These are very old planes. Could something have gone wrong on the P-63 at just the wrong time? Could the pilot had a medical problem?
The way it happened just seems strange to me.

Wiki has it the P-63 was coming in steep to the runway approach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Dallas_airshow_mid-air_collision

According to witness accounts and videos posted to social media, the P-63F was performing a high-speed banked turn onto the runway approach while shedding altitude.

Low pass for the crowd?

Perhaps one aircraft or the other was off schedule.

I ran across another video from another angle. Many planes were in the air at the time.

I bought a ride on a B17 some years ago in Roanoke,VA. I had 15 minutes in the left seat. Cost me $500. I don't remember the tail #. The ride was worth every penny !!

This is so awful, I’m heartbroken for the victims, their families and the spectators who had to see that. It’s terrible.

I’ve changed careers and I fly for a living now, several jet type ratings, Multiple models of King Airs, heavy twins and occasionally light twins and singles. Part 135 and part 91. Jets, turbo-props, radials, pistons on wheels floats and ski’s. Im familiar with the CAF since there is a very active wing close by, they have inquired with me to see if I was interested in flying for them.

I watched that very short clip of the collision. Multiple airplanes in a couple directions

I’m not an expert, and I apologize if I’m out of line, but who else is is concerned with the safety record of the CAF?

That's a fair question

Not to take away from the loss of life but I would think whenever something as precious as a B-17 or similar goes up that the show would sorta "clear the lanes" so to speak.

Don't nobody wanna see all those other fugkin' planes anyway.

These guys are ALL experienced pilots.

To me, it had to be deliberate on the P 63 Pilots part, or else the guy had a medical problem like a heart attack.
With his trajectory, he had to see the B 17 in front of his flight path.

Or else he had some sort of personal problem going on in his life, financial or marital or what ever, and just decided to take himself out quickly
with no thought to those inside the B 17.

I love these old planes, and have done so my entire life since childhood.

However due to their age, the lack of available parts and the cost to keep them flying, I think it is time that the FAA needs to ground them and let them spend the rest of their lives as static displays.

Where the P 63 hit the Fortress right behind the wings, and in front of where the waist gunner's positions are, that was either deliberate, or a one in a million shot...probably the weakest or most vulnerable spot on the A/C's body...

Let them keep the planes running and taxi them around the airfield, but I think its time to quit taking them to wing and flying.

these planes are 77 to 80 plus years old....they were never built to be kept flying that long.
Hell, the life span average for a B 17 bound for the ETO, and especially the 8th AF in England, 1943 from the time it came off the assembly line, was accepted by the Army Air Force, flown across the Atlantic, inspected at the dispatch depot in England, assigned to a unit, had the crew assigned to it some familiarization flight ( usually new crews, not an experienced crew ) and the end of its service life in combat... either shot down over continental Europe, or brought back to its home airfield in England shot to hell and back, and written off.... that time frame was 7 weeks in 1943....

and the B 17 that went down in Dallas after being hit by the P 63, was at least 77 years old if it was built in 1945., when production had ended...
The P 63 itself, was either built in late 1944 or early 1945... and 90% of ALL P 63 Production was given to the Russians....

Even if it wasn't pilot error or suicidal intention, both of these birds were on Borrowed time...they can't live forever... no matter how much I love them and revere the men who flew them during WW 2.

Deliberate? I HIGHLY doubt it.

He had to see the B-17 in front of his flight path? Study up on some mid-air crashes.

Nothing wrong with the planes or pilots. There were just too many planes in too small a space for the pilot to keep track of.

IT's called the idiot flying the P-63...

Second guessing a tragedy like this is futile. The B17 was bigger and slower. The P63 was faster. It was just a tragic mistake.

Wow...
4 planes at low altitude.
One on level path .
3 maneuvering around it in close proximity and timing..
????

Were all 4 in the process of landing approach or getting ready to land.
The B17 looked like it was descending on a straight path.
The fighter planes doing maneuvers at that altitude while the 17 was doing it approach to land????



I dunno...

They have to file like a flight plan and describe what they are gonna do for a exhibition like this wouldnt they???
Whoever would reveiw a plan would allow maneuvering like that at low altitude around a built up area on approaches to a airport????

It don't seem right that it would be allowed.

Not a pilot, but damm it dont seem right they was doing maneuvers like that at low altitude on the approaches to a runway to land.
????

Gonna be alot of questions on what was procedure or planned versus what they was doing.

I hope it wasnt a case of last minute hotdogging it.
And people died as a result of that possibly is pretty sad.

I dunno....

🤷‍♂️😔😔

Well, watching all those videos certainly tells you that the Dallas executive airport is in South Dallas.

I’m sure some pilots here will offer their opinions but I don’t think “tragic mistake” usually cuts it in that world.

It seems like either the bomber was in the guys blind spot (under his nose)…

or

The fighter had a malfunction like his stick froze up..

Possibly both.


Tragic either way for all concerned

Has there been any comment from tower yet, visual observation or on screen of the incident?

Osky

I don't know if this is true or not.
I saw a news clip last night where they had someone on, claiming that the person on the ground in charge of the air space told the P-63 pilot to start their dive/turn.
If true it sounds like the person on the ground screwed up in judging the space needed to make the maneuvers.

Two things are true here:

Non-pilots have no clue what they're talking about.

Actual pilots here have a pretty good idea but are confident that the accident board will do the talking.

Judging by the videos it looked like the P63's turn went a little lower and wider than the pilot had intended. Just human error, he simply made a mistake. Doing it on purpose, no, that's outlandish speak. Get real. People make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes have terrible consequences.

Why bother to keep them running if you're just gonna make a museum outta them. And if you don't fly them, HTF are you gonna get them from place to place for folks to see them? Hook a gooseneck to the nose, fold up the wings and tow them?....

You know the campfire can't resist.

Redout...

"constant bearing, decreasing range", works every time whether you're driving a car a ship or an airplane. The B17 was flying straight and on a steady course, the P-63 came from behind him, approximately the 17s 8'Oclock to 2 O' Clock position. Looks like he wanted to cut the pass real close to the 17 and grossly underestimated. The video is there, it was all on the guy driving the P-63.

I respect your opinion Jorge. I’m not a pilot but I love aviation. All I know is when your going fast things happen very fast.

Well uh you see uh.. you see that Toyota commercial where the tundra pulled the space shuttle???

This isn’t NASCAR

The fighter was not turning on final to land….he was probably doing better than 250-300 knots. He may have been doing an overhead entry to get into the pattern but he was not on final approach. His wheels weren’t down and he wasn’t even close to the speed you need to drop the gear.

Deliberate? Not unless he was trying to commit suicide. Trying to dust them off with a close pass? If that was the case he would have been looking at the B-17 and done something to miss it….harder pull, roll out and pull up, etc. Look at the video showing all the other fighter a/c that flew in front of the B-17 and note the flight path they took relative to the B-17. If the mishap fighter was looking at those other a/c, he would have been looking out the the top of his windscreen or canopy. Meanwhile the B-17 would not be visible underneath the nose.

In the late summer of ‘72, the day I was supposed to solo in the T-34, there was a midair between two T-34s in the landing pattern at what used to be Wolf Field, one of our practice fields. One a/c descended right on top of the other that happened to be hiding right under the nose. Killed all four. Welcome to Naval Aviation young fella!

Jorge mentioned collision bearing earlier. Even if it was “possible” for the fighter to see the B-17, if he was on collision bearing or a collision course, the B-17 would have remained in the same spot on the canopy just getting bigger making it harder for the eye to pick up. There’s no relative motion to get your attention. You wouldn’t see it until a fraction of a second before impact. Wouldn’t even have time to say, “oh chit!”

"B-17G and P-63 Collide at the Wings Over Dallas Air Show - A Speculative/Cursory Analysis"



Bruce

I think that sort of 'second guessing' is what has made aviation as safe as it is.

I suppose we'll eventually find out, but it looks like this was part of the air shop as a fighter doing an intercept ? Definitively not intentional. But, I can certainly buy the 63 never even saw the 17, but it just doesn't seem possible. that 63 seems to have good vis, but given aspect and the long nose (The MiG 17 & 19s had the same issue when an aircraft is either directly below or slightly below the nose. That is a good video, but look the 1000 and 26 min timelines, while I agree with the narrator's theory, I still think he had an initial visual on the 17, was maybe worried about too many "Gs" given it's a vintage aircraft and misjudged his radius of turn and turn rate.

On the video above it sounds like they had two daisy chains going at the same time in concentric circles with the bombers on the outside and the fighters in a smaller circle on the inside. The bomber was then under the nose resulting in the P-63 losing sight sight even if he had it previously. Or…..he might have eased the turn, increasing his turn radius to let the P-51 to pull away a bit and re-establish the correct interval. I think his focus was on trying to get in position behind the second P-51 with his scan focused at 1200 high.

Which translates to pilot error.

From blancolirio, a pilot.

Good explanation.

That IS a great explanation. I agree with him, whoever choreographed that whole parade thing did a damn poor job of melding aircraft of different speeds together. It was fuqking chaos. I’m very disappointed in the CAF.

Again, this is a terrible accident and I’m very sorry for everybody involved.

I’ve had reservations about the CAF for a long time. I was invited to become a pilot with the CAF a number of years ago. I was told I had to pass the check ride and sponsor the airplane that I was to fly. In other words, if I paid enough money I could fly the airplane. Am I the only one that thinks this is not the proper way to choose your pilots? I’m not saying the pilots of these airplanes involved were inexperienced, but how can you gain experience to fly these types of aircraft in an airshow? It was like a fishbowl crowded with airplanes with wildly different performance profiles. It was a fuqking clusterfuqk, an accident waiting to happen. Damn it anyway, it cost six men in their lives and we’ve lost two very rare aircraft. And now the CAF‘s mission has been terribly compromised.

It’s been suggested it’s time to retire these airplanes to static displays. The environmental protection agency is taking care of that for us by forcing the phase out of 100LL fuel. Soon, there will not be any fuel for the engines these aircraft use, they were designed for 130 octane which of course is not produced anymore, so they use 100 octane leaded fuel which the EPA has told us has to go away. That should pretty much render these airplanes unflyable.

It all went downhill when they became woke and changed their name......

No disrespect to the aviators. RIP.

THIS in BOLD above.

Yep, we’re chock full of doctors, virologists, fighter pilots, snipers, and a few proctologists thrown in for good measure.

RIP those guys flying the warbirds.

One thing I haven't heard mentioned yet. Is what happened within the accident... and it might be macabre, but I've looked at quite a few of the video's and stopped them and then played them in slow motion. And from what I could see it looks as if the P-63 came up to the B-17 as said in that tight turn and belly-up to and colliding with the B-17 shearing off the tail section right behind the wing leaving the forward section still attached to the wing. But what is not easily seen with the P-63 is it looks like after shearing off the B-17's tail, the P-63 lost its own wings and went right up into the fuselage of the B-17 and hitting the ground together. I couldn't spot any sign of the P63's fuselage immediately after shearing off the B17's wings, but a lot of debris from its own wings.

You can use slow motion in a YouTube video, by running it to near completion and stopping it using the ll stop function, and then slowly clicking on the progress bar behind the ball that sshows where it was stopped, and just graduall keep clicking behind it back tracking if you will be showing it all in slow motion.

Phil

You can make out the fuselage of the P-63 in the opening still of BFaucett’s earlier post shot from about 1:00 of the B-17. It’s hi and left and the fuselage looks somewhat intact with the tail lower than the nowe.

You are right, from the frontal view it looks like it went in and came out the right side of the B-17 tearing out the side right up to the cockpit. But it is definitely visible from that view.

Neither of those are actually "true".

Many "non-pilots" know very well what they are talking about in various/certain aspects of such aeronautical situations

And, some of the actual pilots here have expressed much more than a "pretty good idea".

Who would not be confident that the accident board will do the talking - for they always do talk in the aftermath.

PR spokesperson type statements often are misleading.