A pair of World War II-era planes slammed together midair this past Saturday while taking part in an airshow hosted in Dallas numerous videos online highlighted the planes bursting into a ball of flames as they made contact with the ground.
The tragedy took place at the Wings Over Dallas World War II Airshow hosted in honor of Veterans Day Saturday afternoon.
“A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed at the Wings Over Dallas Airshow at Dallas Executive Airport in Texas around 1:20 p.m. local time Saturday,” explained a statement from the FAA regarding the incident. “At this time, it is unknown how many people were on both aircraft.”
One spokesperson for Commemorative Air Force, Leah Block, expressed via a statement, “Currently we do not have information on the status of the flight crews as emergency responders are working the accident.”
Block went on to tell ABC News that she thinks there could have been a crew of five people within the B-17 at the time of the violently explosive crash and just one onboard the p-63 when it crashed.
BREAKING: 2 planes, including a B-17 Flying Fortress, collide at Dallas airshow pic.twitter.com/hdieiJuqvX
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) November 12, 2022
BREAKING: Footage shows air collision of a B-17 bomber and smaller plane at Dallas airshow pic.twitter.com/eD1c2GHvu4
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) November 12, 2022
⚠️ GRAPHIC VIDEO: A mid-air collision involving two planes near the Dallas Executive Airport, today. The accident took place during the Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow at 1:25 p.m., according to Dallas Fire-Rescue. A @FOX4 viewer took this video. @FOX4 is working for more details. pic.twitter.com/jdA6Cpb9Ot
— David Sentendrey (@DavidSFOX4) November 12, 2022
As a member of the Army Air Forces Historical Association, Paul Martin pressed with extreme sorrow to representatives of The New York Times that it is very rare to discover a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra that has been meticulously maintained well enough to be able to still keep their flying condition as there are currently only a small number of them left at all in existence.
“It’s heartbreaking for me to hear this, both on a human level and a historical level,” he stated.
Morgan Curry was able to witness the insane crash and the resulting fireball from a nearby parking lot area, and explained to one local NBC affiliate, “It’s like literally as you looked up you saw the big plane and then you saw one of the little planes split off from the three and then as soon as it split off it’s like they just collided into each other and the little plane split the big plane in half.”
“I honestly can’t believe that we witnessed that, like just standing here underneath it,” expressed Curry with his comments to the local NBC outlet. “We were all just standing there like ‘what just happened?'”
