Today we lost an American Treasure...

This morning around 10am, the Collings Foundation's WWII B-17 Bomber crashed at Bradley International Airport, in CT. It was part of the "Wings of freedom tour" there were 3 crew members and 10 paying passengers that were to enjoy a 30 minute flight in the historic B-17 named Nine-O-Nine.
At least 5 have lost their lives.
I was on the plane Monday, Third time for me, Along with the B-17, there is a B-25 Mitchel, a B-24 Liberator, a P-40 fighter, and a P-51..

I met the crew, knew of the mechanics on board, no word on the victims names yet.

Please take a second to reflect.

Gary please move this if needed.

Rest in peace.....

It's always sad to lose lives and pieces of American History such as that plane, especially one as decorated as that one seems to be judging by all of the tallies.

That really was sad, both the loss of life as well as that piece of history.  I think I've been in that plane, although only on the ground.  It was at an air show in PA about 30 years ago and my son and I went.

Hats off and heads bowed to those who lost their lives on that flight this morning.  

I noted some unusual approaches to Tweed in New Haven around 11 but didn't understand that flights were being diverted from Bradley until lunch and checked the news.

This is very sad.
Nine-o-nine was popular on the warbird circuit and had experienced crew.
I've seen her flying but never been aboard.

That's a real shame, the lives and the plane both.

My grandmother's husband served as navigator on B-17s as well as B-24s over Germany.  Ever since I learned that (they married in 2000) I've wanted to go for a flight in one, just to see things from his perspective.  Hopefully I'll still have the chance some day.

A great loss for the families and the country.

Read this morning they confirmed 7 fatalities in this accident.

I'm curious if my company will be making a statement in relation to it.

Reamer I hadn't heard about this.  Thanks for sharing, so sorry to hear.  Had to be a big impact since you just rode with them

FAA has taken all the engines for an intense examination along with samples of the fuel that did survive, (along with all the remaining pieces....)

Well, if they did get filled with jet-A I can't imagine the horror of the pilots as they tried to climb and the engines sputtered to a stop one by one.

Think if you topped up with diesel at the rest stop and pulled into the middle of the highway as your truck died.
Then imagine you were pulling up, instead of out.... and you had a van full of passengers.

This is one of the key questions, the grade of aviation fuel. And our "on top of things" senator demands to know why there is no "black box" in a B-17 Bomber.

Probably for the same reason why I don't have a Tire pressure monitoring system in my 1948 F-5...

Which Senator is that?

It's not the 'grade'... more like the flavor.
Comparing Jet-A to 110LL is like comparing milk to whisky.

Oh wow.  Is there talk of being misfueled?  That would make more sense.  A '17 would be fine on one engine if it's not mishandled.  (Feather the wrong engine and now you're down to two instead of three etc..)  it also had to be a lot lighter than gross weight...

Did anyone hear other speculation?

I just read that the flight engineer survived thankfully...

It's just conjecture at this time.
And I want to point out that everyone should wait for the NTSB before calling out the lynch mob.

Though the footage I've seen of the crash seems much more like a jet fuel fire than the more volatile gasoline.

I have a girl friend who is a fractional pilot.
She says this is the gossip among professional pilots that are not airline pilots.

This could get ugly....er

The best point made, is to wait for the NTSB to conclude their investigation. Amazing what they find sometimes.

Agree on the NTSB and didn't mean to prompt speculation.  I'm a pilot myself, haven't flown for years, so my brain tends to go to "what happened".

I had the true honor of being instructed by a WW2 pilot who flew B25s, '17s and later '29s.  When I read of these pilots, I of course thought of him... he was bright, demanding and a wealth of information, and became my first true friend in that generation.  I believe I was his last student.  

The pilot of nine o nine had over 7 thousand hours in the fortress.  That's amazing.  You have to know how competent he was... I only meant to say in my post that it would seem plausible they were facing more than loss of one engine.  I'm sure we will find out more.  So very sad