Two vintage military planes crashed to the ground after colliding midair with each other on Saturday while an air show was going on in Dallas. The officials said the crash took at least six lives, and the procedure of identifying the victims was going on.
The Details of the Incident
Emergency crews rushed to the spot at the Dallas Executive Airport, almost ten miles from downtown Dallas. Videos posted on social media caught the horrifying moments of the collision, and footage showed the wreckage of the historic aircraft scattered in the grassy area in the crash spot. Local police and fire personnel helped the National Transportation Safety Board to deal with the situation.
People who went to attend the air show got in complete shock witnessing the incident. The crash occurred at 1.20 pm on Saturday.
The Casualties
The B-17 Flying Fortress generally includes 4-5 crew members, and the other fighter aircraft, the P-63 Kingcobra, only has one pilot. So, there was no paying customer in any of the planes, said Hank Coates, the owner of the planes and the president of the show hosting company. He also added that only high-efficiency volunteers flow the aircraft, most of whom are retired pilots.
The Vintage Planes
B-17, one of the historic aircraft that collided, is a four-engine bomber used by the USA in World War II and is one of the most famous military planes in U.S. history. Very few aircraft of this kind remain today, primarily featured in air shows and museums.
Air Show Safety
There have been serious concerns about the safety of the air shows organized with old aircraft. Crashes of planes during air shows aren’t rare, either. A crash in an air show in Nevada’s Reno killed eleven people in 2011, while in 2019, seven people died due to a crash in Connecticut’s Hartford.
