LM OTERO and JILL BLEED (Associated Press)
DALLAS (AP) – Two historic military planes collided and crashed into the bottom on Saturday on the Dallas air show, exploding right into a ball of flames and sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. It was not clear how many individuals were on board the planes.
Rescue teams raced to the crash site on the Dallas Executive Airport, roughly 16 kilometers from the town center. The footage from the scene showed a crumpled wreckage of planes in a grassy area, apparently on the outskirts of the airport. The Dallas Fire-Rescue told The Dallas Morning News that no injuries to people on the bottom were reported.
Anthony Montoya saw a collision between two planes.
“I used to be just standing there. I used to be in complete shock and disbelief, ”said Montoya, 27, who attended the air show with a friend. “Everyone across the throttle. Everyone was crying. Everyone was shocked. “
Officials would not say how many individuals were on board the planes, but Hank Coates, president of the corporate that hosted the air show, said one in every of the planes, the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, typically has a crew of 4 to 5. The second, the P-63 Kingcobra fighter, has one pilot.
There have been no paying customers on the plane, said Coates of the Commemorative Air Force, which also owned the planes. He said their planes are operated by highly trained volunteers, often retired pilots.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said the National Transportation Safety Board took control of the crash site with help from local police and fire brigades.
“Movies are painful,” Johnson said on Twitter.
The planes collided and crashed around 1:20 pm, the Federal Aviation Administration said in an announcement. The collision occurred in the course of the Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Dallas show.
Victoria Yeager, widow of the famous Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager, and the pilot herself, also attended the show. She couldn’t see the collision, but she did see the wreck on fire.
“It was powdered,” said Yeager, 64, from Fort Value.
“We just hoped all of them got out, but we knew they would not,” she said of those on board.
The B-17, a large four-engine bomber, was a cornerstone of the US Air Force during World War II and is one of the crucial famous combat aircraft in US history. The Kingcobra, an American fighter plane, was mainly utilized by Soviet troops in the course of the war. A lot of the B-17s were scrapped at the tip of World War II, and only a handful have survived to this present day, largely on display in museums and airshows, in keeping with Boeing.
Several videos posted on social media showed that the fighter appears to fly into the bomber, causing it to quickly crash into the bottom and launch a big ball of fireplace and smoke.
“It was really scary,” 37-year-old Aubrey Anne Young of Leander. Texas that saw the crash. Her children were within the hangar with their father when it happened. “Still attempting to figure it out.”
The girl next to Young is crying and screaming hysterically on the video Young uploaded to her Facebook page.
The security of air shows – especially with older military planes – has been a difficulty for years. In 2011, 11 people were killed in Reno, Nevada when a P-51 Mustang hit viewers. In 2019, a bomber crashed in Hartford, Connecticut, killing seven people. The NTSB then said it had investigated 21 crashes since 1982 involving WWII bombers, killing 23 people.
Wings Over Dallas advertises itself because the “US Premier World War II Airshow,” in keeping with the web site promoting the event. The show was scheduled for November 11-13, the weekend of Veterans Day, and visitors were to see greater than 40 planes from World War II. Saturday’s afternoon flight show schedule included a “bomber parade” and “fighter escort” wherein the B-17s and P-63s participated.
Videos from previous Wings Over Dallas events show old combat planes flying low, sometimes in close formation, during simulated fire or bombing. The videos also show planes performing aerobatic acrobatics.
The FAA has also opened an investigation, officials said.
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Bleeding reported from Little Rock, Arkansas
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