Cudahy said that typically at air shows there is a Friday rehearsal where the pilots fly through the entire show to practice, so the Saturday show is actually the second time the pilots have flown the show. John Cudahy is president of the International Council of Air Shows, a trade group that sets the standards air shows follow and oversees the training of pilots and “air bosses,” who serve as the flight controller for an event. The aircraft are flown by highly trained volunteers, often retired pilots, said Hank Coates, president of Commemorative Air Force. The aircraft are owned by Commemorative Air Force, the company that put on the air show. Graham said five people were in the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and a pilot was the only person in the P-63 Kingcobra fighter plane. The company that owned the planes flying in the Wings Over Dallas show has had other crashes in its more than 60-year history. The crash came three years after the crash of a bomber in Connecticut that killed seven, and amid ongoing concern about the safety of air shows involving older warplanes. “One of the things we would probably most likely be trying to determine is why those aircraft were co-altitude in the same air space at the same time,” Michael Graham, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference Sunday. Several videos posted on social media showed the fighter plane flying into the bomber.
DALLAS (AP) - A national transportation official probing the cause of a midair crash of two historic military planes during an air show that left six people dead said Sunday one of the key questions investigators were seeking to answer is why the aircraft were seemingly sharing the same space just before impact.Ī World War II-era bomber and a fighter plane collided and crashed to the ground in a ball of flames on Saturday, leaving crumpled wreckage in a grassy area inside the Dallas Executive Airport perimeter, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the city’s downtown.
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