Warbird Information Exchange

I have to agree with those calling for an end to this thread. I have read posts where people were "troubled" by some setting, or they were sure it was probably jet fuel in the tanks, questioning position of flaps, whether or not a propeller was feathered, being feathered, or broke upon impact. People have questioned runway choice, and numerous other things. I am not a pilot, not a qualified aircraft mechanic, NTSB investigator, FAA agent or anything else offical. I do like the warbirds. I think we should leave ALL the speculation to the professionals. If some of what I mentioned were the opinions of professionals, either having direct participation or knowledge in this matter, then I apologize. No one seems to have taken into fact that, probably the most experienced B-17 pilot alive, was in control of the aircraft. I would assume that HE KNEW what he was doing in regards to picking runway, flap positions, prop feathering and everything else he could probably do. He had the lives of many souls on his aircraft. He was responsible. Do any of you really think he would make a simple mistake? I for one don't. I flew on 909 many years ago and he was the pilot. I talked to him many times since, every time Collings came to my home town. So people on this forum, and other social media, will continue to take control of an imaginary B-17 while sitting in their recliner so they can second guess, or speculate, or whatever, as to what went wrong. Yes, most posts have been respectful, but a few were totally out of line, IMO. The questions I have is this, What good does all this speculation, "backseat" driving, guessing really do? Will it help find the cause? Will it make those who lost loved ones feel better? Will it help with the loss of such a magnificent piece of history? Or is it just to make people "feel good"? Yes, I know I don't have to read the posts, and actually stopped the until the preliminary cause was released and posted. Then I made the mistake of reading a few more. All of you should sit back and see the, IMO, idiocy of this entire thread. After several posts someone popped up and posted that 909 had gone down. There were posts of no fatalities, a couple of fatalities, several fatalities, etc. Imagine the relief of friends, and possibly family, of some of the occupants on that plane when it was posted that there no fatalities. Then imagine the feelings when the truth finally came out. I have worked in a trauma hospital for almost 30 years. I have seen many people pass away. I can tell you, first hand, the devistation that rumors of someone's survival turning out to be false can do to family and friends. I know I will probably get a lot of bashing for this post, but so be it. Just remember, ask your self the questions I posed and be honest with the answers.

Sir, I don’t think wix Is for you. Maybe you should look for another outlet. They have this thing called “ pilot error” where some of the best pilots in the world have lost their lives by making a simple error. Everybody is human and mistakes do happen.

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" I am a nobody in aviation, but somebody to my family."

I don't think any of that will be worth speculating on until and if a radar track comes out. Certainly the pilots were trying to maintain altitude - that much is a reasonable deduction by the flaps being up. Personally the NTSB engine / propeller tips damage report makes it sound like they possibly impacted the ground in a bank, or at some point were wing-low during the ground sequence of the emergency landing - which is what I think we should call this. Technically it sounds like a LOC on the ground, or perhaps due to the impact with the runway accessories, which may have been unavoidable due to the aircraft's power state. A steeper turn to another runway, depending on their location, might not have been helpful due to the loss of the vertical component of lift in a turn.

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

That is definitely a valid observation. Runway 24/33 are both suitable for landing, as told to me by my friends who fly the B-17. That runway is pretty long and even used by commercial jet traffic, so no issues that I'm aware of. I know that Collings has operated off of much shorter runways in the B-17 in the past.

I have a lot of experience in flying multi-engine aircraft and here is my perspective as a pilot. One of the things that one is taught in flying these aircraft when losing an engine is to run the appropriate checklists and to not rush and prematurely land an aircraft sooner than when you are ready to land. All of this is tempered, however, by other possibly over-riding considerations.

For a normal engine(s) shutdown, there is no rush to land the aircraft prematurely. Accomplish the checklists and land after completion of the checklists. If there is some other more pressing consideration, then one might have to land the aircraft prior to accomplishing all of the emergency checklists. One example of that is a fire. An onboard fire that cannot be extinguished is probably one of the most time-sensitive emergencies where you need to land ASAP, meaning within minutes, and where every second counts. There are numerous examples of onboard fires in past aviation accidents, that went out of control, very, very quickly.

Warbird-wise, two examples come to mind - the B-17 Liberty Belle accident and the B-25 onboard fire in France a few years back. In both of those examples, the onboard fires were so severe that they both necessitated an off-airport landing, rather than landing on a runway. Both of those decisions appear to have been the right decisions to make at the time. In the example of the B-25, I was told that another 60 to 90 seconds in the air and the aircraft would have had a catastrophic in-flight disintegration. Onboard, uncontrolled fires are something you don't ever mess with and you want to land within minutes, literally. In my discussions in the past with very, very experienced warbird pilots, most have told me that you need to land the aircraft within about 5, maybe 10 minutes at the very most, before you lose control of the aircraft due to the uncontrolled fire. Was that at play here? We don't know yet.

In my view, it is way too early to speculate on which runway was the best one to land on. Was there an onboard fire? Had they completed the emergency checklists yet? Were the bad engine(s) secured with the props feathered? Were they able to maintain aircraft control up to this point? What if there was a governor failure and they couldn't keep one or both of the props feathered? What if one or both engines had malfunctioning governors that caused the props to go in and out of feather? Etc., etc. There are too many questions and not enough information to even begin a discussion about this, in my opinion.

I don't think questions about landing runway are appropriate at this time. All of the information about this will come out in due course and I'm positive the NTSB will give us all the answers we desire when the final report comes out. Two things that point me towards this observation:

1) The flight engineer/mechanic crew member survived the accident. He actually got released from the hospital to go home. He was witness to the entire event and undoubtedly was on the intercom listening to the pilots. His testimony, in my opinion, will be a major part of the NTSB investigation, as he can fill in all of the blanks as to what the pilots were doing and why since he was a first hand witness. This is especially important since the aircraft was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder (black boxes).

2) According to the NTSB, all, or nearly all of the flight is documented in either pictures or video. This will go a long way towards piecing all of this together. This will illustrate what engine(s) were operating, which were feathered, the configuration of the aircraft, whether it was in the proper energy state to make the runway, etc., etc.

Thanks for your input Scott, and I agree wholeheartedly 100%!

Some of the radar track, altitude and speed data for the flight was on FlightAware.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N93012

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You need to understand that in Aviation there are a huge amount of phrases that are exact definitions of something. They are not open to interpretation, no matter what an individual's personal feelings may be. They are legally admissible in court as only what they actually mean, and that is the case here.

No one but the OEMs have the official, FAA-blessed right to term any engine zero time, even if the scope of work done on the engine by a field shop is exactly the same as the factory's rebuild process. The term "rebuilt" is defined in FAR 91.175. The definition allows an owner or operator to use a new maintenance record without previous operating history for an aircraft engine rebuilt by the manufacturer or an agency approved by the manufacturer.

An engine having gone through the same process by other shops is considered and "Overhauled", not a "Rebuilt" engine. From the FAA's point of view, the OEMs have access to the original production drawings, thus they can theoretically attest that each engine component conforms to new specs during the rebuilding process, whether it's a new part or one with 2000 hours of flight time

Just to keep the record straight, that is the wrong regulation that you reference. The ones that apply to what you are talking about are 14 CFR 43.2 and 14 CFR 91.421.

Hello all, I have not posted here in quite some time but I still regularly read the posts. I think Scott does a fantastic job of keeping history alive with this site using the collective knowledge that we have all gained to help our understanding of these great aircraft. With that being said, I understand that all of our experience levels are different. But, we all have a shared passion or interest and that is why I read the posts. Sites like the warbird information exchange are a great resource to learn more about these historic aircraft.

I have taught ground schools and instructed in aircraft. I’ve learned that each of my students had different ways of learning and I never wanted to discourage a question, or an opinion because it helped me understand where they were at in their learning process. I much rather would have a student ask questions especially about things that they don’t understand, than have a student that thinks they know it all and ask none. I found the best way for me to be an instructor was to listen to my student and attempt to figure out how they learned best and then try to teach in the style that works well for them, not in the style that works well for me. I value everyone’s opinion and input here and recognize there will be times when we don’t always agree. I accept that and think that this thread should remain open and available for comment. Yes some of the information presented has been incorrect, but I believe it wasn’t written to be intentionally misleading or with malice. I believe that some of the posts especially early on, that turned out to be untrue were based on hope, and hope is never a bad thing in my opinion. We are all human and we are all imperfect, but that shouldn’t keep us from having a healthy dialogue so that we can to continue to learn and improve our knowledge and understanding of history. Everything in life is filled with pros and cons. For me, this site has definitely been a much more positive learning experience than a negative one.

With all that being said, this topic has hit close to home. I was a volunteer for the foundation for several years and had flown with Mac in 909 for nearly 300 hours. These were my thoughts a few days after the accident.

“On October 2, 2019 a tragic accident took the lives of 7 wonderful people and injured 7 others. My thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends, coworkers, crew members and first responders that have been deeply affected by this tragedy. Mac was a friend and more importantly, a mentor to me. He taught me how to fly the B-17 and also encouraged me to get my A&P certificate. I have many fond memories of flying “909” with Mac as well as helping him clean and maintain her. The years of service both Mac and “909” gave to preserving the legacy of the heroism, sacrifice and honor of our WWII veterans shall never be forgotten. The lives they touched by making 1,000’s of tour stops ensured millions of people could understand what their grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, uncle, aunt and/or countrymen had endured in the service of not only our nation but the world to ensure freedom from tyranny. I am forever grateful for my time on the tour with Mac and extremely saddened by the outcome of horrible events that unfolded on that day. I did not know the other people involved in the accident, but I am sure the people that knew them have many wonderful memories of their time spent with them. Wishing a speedy recovery to the injured and my sincere condolences to all who have been affected. RIP”

I have not been a part of the tour since 2013, but still feel the loss nevertheless. I too want to know what happened and why, but since I wasn’t there I can’t comment without delving into speculation. There are so many possibilities and scenarios it would take pages to explain them all and I still could be way off base. So, I am just trying to be patient and let the NTSB do their job.

I have thought about answering specific systems related questions to help people who don’t understand the mechanical and aerodynamic nuances of World War II aircraft, but I have resisted the urge to do so. It is hard to keep my emotions in check and present strictly facts about the aircraft. The teacher in me wants to try to explain some things so that others may learn, But I also want to be respectful and not talk out of turn or present bad or false information.

For now, I thank all of you for being a part of this forum and enhancing my knowledge and understanding of history. I also thank you for taking the time to read my lengthy post.

Not lengthy enough. Thx for your post.

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Zero Surprise!!...

I see no rampant disrespect in this thread so I vote to keep it open.

When I first read that they were on downwind but at 300 feet AGL I thought that might be a tough turn to make. But I didn't say anything because I didn't know how far away from the runway they were, on downwind. From the little bit of the Flight track that we can see, it looks like the turn may have been doable.
And they did seem to get it turned.

Looks like they were quite capable of maintaining that 300 AGL from the Flight Track graphs.

I doubt that's corrected for density altitude - per the NTSB / controller account as well as someone I know who has seen the video of it on downwind, she didn't get much above 350' AGL.



Agreed - although the person I spoke with also said that the plane was clearly barely flying (both speed and altitude) for whatever reason. As with most of us here, that's the part that's got us mystified - but they actually saw the video.

What was the speed?

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" I am a nobody in aviation, but somebody to my family."

"Agreed - although the person I spoke with also said that the plane was clearly barely flying (both speed and altitude) for whatever reason. As with most of us here, that's the part that's got us mystified - but they actually saw the video."

Not sure how you determine "barely flying" from the standpoint of speed from a video. Watching huge jetliners approaching Boston Logan from Revere Beach...it looks like those behemoths are hardly moving. Yet they are doing 100-200mph. "barely flying" is best determined with your hands and feet on the controls.

And as the graph shows they maintained altitude though, I have to say that the graph also showed they lost alt before lining up with the runway....in fact roughly the first third of the downwind leg. Not sure one would do that purposefully given that they had a turn to make. There's also a little dogleg in the altitude plot..they adjusted the rate of descent in about the middle of it. Would be handy to see the rest of the speed and alt plot for the rest of the flight.

Not sure what I would do in a similar circumstance but it might be that if I was having trouble and wanting to get back down fast I wouldn't be going as fast as I could - I need to make that turn - especially if I decided upon a 180 at 300 feet. Lots of speed could cause an overshoot and that brings on a whole hosts of dangers (spinning in). Nor would I do much climbing - unless I figured I needed the altitude to make the turn.

The plots are handy. But not enough to draw many conclusions.

From the track log the high was 103kts and the low was 97kts. Seems pretty slow but I don't have the B-17 handbook so I don't know how that stacks up against normal ops