Horrific Tragedy At Dallas Airshow As Fighter Collides With B-17 Bomber

The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) is a major collector, restorer and operator of vintage aircraft. For seven years, the organization has held the Wings over Dallas airshow to show off their remarkable fleet of World War II warplanes on Veterans Day weekend.

But the over 4,000 attendees at the show’s second day of events at Dallas Executive Airport on Saturday witnessed a horrifying tragedy at 1:20pm that day. During a parade of bombers and escorting fighters, the pilot of a single-engine P-63 Kingcobra fighter misjudged a turn and slammed into the fuselage of a four-engine B-17G Flying Fortress bomber named Texas Raiders, completely severing its rear fuselage from the wings and nose.

In three horrifying seconds, the P-63 disintegrated while the B-17’s two halves plummeted to the Earth and exploded in a massive fireball.

The aircraft were flying far too low for the crew to have time, or sufficient altitude, to bail out. Besides the pilot flying the P-63, five were believed to be onboard the B-17 when it exploded, including crew from the CAF’s Gulf Coast Wing.