Tragedy descended at a Dallas Executive Airport on Saturday as two planes, reportedly part of an airshow, collided mid-flight.
According to reports, the collision occurred at approximately 1:20 pm during the Commemorative Air Force (CAF)’s Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow.
The tragedy, which was captured on video, left the reported 4,000 to 6,000 spectators in shock and disbelief as they witnessed the unthinkable unfolding before their eyes.
“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. At this time, it is unknown how many people were on both aircraft,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement shortly after the plane crash.
Speaking to the local media shortly after the incident, CAF President Hank Coates said he was not in a position to release any information regarding the number of casualties.
He however noted that the B-17 typically has a crew of about four to five persons on board while the P-63 is a single-pilot, fighter-type aircraft, Fox 4 reports.
“Obviously this is a very challenging time for the families. And when I say family, I also mean the CAF family and our customers that follow us all over the world and enjoy our shows,” he said.
CAF is a nonprofit organization that owns over 180 aircrafts that appear in air shows all over the US and in other parts of the world.
“This was a World War II flight demonstration-type airshow where we highlight the aircraft and their capabilities and what actually happened in WWII. It’s very patriotic. The maneuvers that they were going through were not dynamic at all. It was what we call bombers on parade,” the CAF president said
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are said to be launching an investigation into the crash to determine exactly what factors led to the tragedy Coates shared.
“NTSB will be doing a very thorough and complete investigation and which time they will release a preliminary report, which will be followed up at a later time, usually a significantly later time once they do engineering analysis and interviews and everything like that,” he said.
