Terrible. As someone who has been to and participated in several airshows, Stuff like this is actually rare. I did see one shocking angle of this that showed several aircraft not really flying in formation but just kind of zooming around the airspace…which is highly problematic and not common at all.
It is admittedly hard to judge separation distances between aircraft. The human brain isn’t really built for it, which is why modern aircraft have so many collision detection systems. The trouble with these older planes (especially the P-63) is they have gigantic blind spots where the view is blocked by the instrument panels, etc. This happened because the B-17 was in the blind spot of the P-63’s turn.
I haven’t seen an update on how many people were in the B-17, but it probably wasn’t close to the full crew complement (thankfully). Also, the crash seemed to happen over a clear part of the airfield. To add to the tragedy, this was one of only 3 remaining airworthy/operational B-17s left.
seems crazy that older planes don’t get newer collision avoidance systems. i get that these don’t fly often enough for it to be cost effective, but to the letter of the regulation, this wouldn’t bot be certified airworthy for a new plane.
It still seems like the accident rate at these airshows is orders of magnitude higher than normal. Not sure if it’s because the planes are old or if the pilots are inexperienced with them or what.
I guess it depends on the airshow and show control, really.
military shows and long-standing civilian shows with professional, experienced show control (that’s the special ATC for just the airshow space), like OshKosh or Dayton see way less of this. Warbirds usually put on very well-controlled shows, but like I said above, the older the planes, the higher the risk.
I suspect this particular show was not well-controlled based on what I see of this crash and what seems to be happening in the surrounding airspace.
I thought air shows would be incredibly boring but one of my buddies dragged me to one once in AC. Have to admit that I was highly entertained. We sat on the rooftop hotel pool deck and got to see them flying out over the open ocean. Super cool. Especially with the view of being on the hotel roof vs boardwalk.
During the practice day the F-16s (18s?) flew in directly behind us super low over the top of the hotel and scared the hell out of me. Totally didn’t expect them because we were looking out over the ocean. I got my ass busted about that good.
In the days before cell phones and video everywhere, I was approaching the pressbox at USAFA stadium getting ready to announce the pre-game Wings of Blue demo and the delivering of the game ball by parachute, as is tradition.
One of the flybys scheduled for that day was 4 F-111 Aardvarks, and as we watched the other flybys, I had no idea what I was about to witness…
4 supersonic-capable fighter-bombers flying only slightly higher than eyelevel to the press box, fast enough that you could see the shock diamonds out of the tailpipes, literally blowing out some of the glass. They lost their wings. It was the best flyby I’d ever seen.
I cannot fucking believe this, but someone actually got a video of it and I found it on youtube. I think this view is from on top of the pressbox. Note the reasonable altitudes and speed of the other formations…the F-111s are at the end.
ETA: this was the Army vs. Air Force game that year, so of course we had to put on an excessive show
yeah, that F-111 flyby was basically the Top Gun video Dr. Chesspain posted but IRL. Pretty sure the entire stadium had the same reaction as the videographer: “omg…oh shit! Oh My GOD! AAAAAHHHH”
