Terrible A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed around 1:20 p.m. local time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It is unclear how many people were on board the bomber and fighter aircraft, it said.
It's possibly worth searching 'P63 cockpit' on Twatter. A fair few pilots talking about apparently well-known blind spots. (Obviously, I know nothing of real experience of aviation & all will be explained, hopefully, by very serious investigators, but it is interesting.)
The tragic accident sadly brings to mind the ramming attacks launched on 7 April 1945 by the pilots of Schulungslehrgang Elbe against US Eighth Air Force bombers. Prior to the attacks the pilots were briefed on various tactics thought to be effective in bringing down a B-17, including using the Bf 109’s propeller as a circular saw on the control surfaces to a ram, preferably with a wing so that the fighter’s pilot stood a chance of parachuting to safety after the collision. For ramming, the pilots were told to aim for the weakest point of the bomber, which was identified as the fuselage in front of the tail; it looks as if the P-63 struck close to this point. Yesterday’s accident was a terrible repetition of history and beyond dreadful for those on board the two aircraft and their relatives. RIP.
It seems that the P-63 pilot wanted to fly close over the B-17 and came a little too low. He probably also had the bomber in his blind spot in the last few seconds because of the cowling.... Unbelievably tragic The picture gives a shattering impression of the force of the impact.
Awful, almost incomprehensible, but a sobering reminder of what bomber crews perhaps saw on most missions ...... and went up again and again ....... rather like that quiet line towards the end of the Hemswell based film 'Night Bombers': "..... until their tour is over, or they get the chop ..." And why 'Harris' never flew again?
That still picture is even more horrific than I thought. I was struggling to find the right words but QuarterFinal said it best. Nearly incomprehensible.
I saw animarchy's youtube analysis. It sounds plausible, especially when you put it together with the bit about the air controller. The film of the crash is still horrifying. It's odd, I can watch 80 year old clips of planes getting shot down but that all seems remote and at times I can forget how awful what I am seeing is. But this crash happened just three days ago and if you watch the film you can hear the shocked cries of the crowd. It brings it home to you. It also made me appreciate just how horribly difficult and dangerous flying those aircraft under wartime conditions really was. In any given WWII air group most of the pilots would have been complete novices only a year or so before they went on their first combat mission. Yet after what we would regard today as very rushed training these very young men were sent into the air at the controls of large, heavy, fast machines loaded with fuel, bombs, and ammunition. These aircraft lacked many of the power controls and other aids today's pilots take for granted. The airmen were expected not only to fly and navigate these aircraft but to do so in formation, at night, in bad weather, and as a final test under enemy fire. Reading accounts of wartime aviation you naturally pay attention to the air battles and hardly notice the tally of losses to "other causes." But fatal accidents were horribly common, especially in training, and given all the hazardous factors enumerated above it's surprising that they weren't more common still.
Just reading of such things in my newly bought book the 'Mission' James Stewart watching his friends getting blown out of the sky at 22,000 feet over Germany. A B-24 being attacked by FW 190's, one of it's engines on fire, two parachutes appear, seconds later the plane blew-up, nothing left except falling debris.
Twenty years after a cottage holiday in Denmark in the mid-80s, I found out that a cousin - who I had never heard of before - was buried only a few miles away. Research showed he was one of three killed when their outbound Lancaster was attacked by a JU 88C night-fighter of II./NJG 3, being controlled by the radar station “Star” at Lütjenhorn. At 02:37am the Lancaster exploded in the air. Wreckage was spread over a radius of 1.5 miles .... The desperate image posted by ltdan will now always come to mind.
