B-17 Crashed!

[George]

Linky What a shame, flew in, but had been grounded for a few days with mechanical problems.

 

[Team Infidel]

That plane burned to the ground... wow... that's too bad, the B-17 is an awesome plane. Glad nobody was injured.

 

[Big_T87]

What's crazy is by the burn direction in the pictures you can tell the fuel tanks caught fire. I saw a comment on another site about the pilot radioed in about an engine fire, or fire on the aircraft. Poor warbird though, beautiful aircraft gone now.

 

[headwards]

Good on the pilot! It can't be easy to keep calm and land a plane in a wet cornfield while on fire. It said on our news last night that he was an Australian.

 

[MontyB]

Well that explains why it crashed, we have enough Australian F-111 parts buried in our landscape to build a squadron of our own.

 

[mmarsh]

Saw this in the news. The B-17 in question was the "Liberty Belle", a type B-17G that saw action over Germany. Her loss means that there are only 14 B-17 in flyable condition of the 12000 built.

 

[rattler]

There is a general thingy about warbirds and why we lose so many, well explained by (a rather paranoid when it comes to airmanship but in this case dead on spot) friend of me here (and long ago):

http://www.airdisaster.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3142&p=42325&#p42325

I can only subscribe to his comment, spot on!

Rattler

 

[Warwick]

Damn shame and a pity fire services couldn't have saved more of her!

 

[LeEnfield]

I took this photo some years ago of a B17 beating up a RAF Station in Kent

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