Dallas crash of WW II-era planes claimed six lives, officials say

Six people died in Saturday’s midair collision and crash of two WW II-era military aircraft at a Dallas air show, the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.

The pair of planes met in midair, burst into a ball of flames and plummeted to the ground in pieces at the Dallas Executive Airport, which lies about 10 miles from downtown Dallas.

According to videos posted on social media, a P-63 Kingcobra fighter plane, which carries just a pilot, flew into the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, which typically holds a four- to five-person crew. The crash, which happened during the Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Dallas air show, left plane shards strewn across a grassy area inside the airport’s perimeter.

“One of the things we would probably most likely be trying to determine is why those aircraft were co-altitude in the same airspace at the same time,” National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member Michael Graham said at a Sunday news conference.

There were no victims or injuries on the ground, Dallas Fire-Rescue said. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins tweeted the death toll on Sunday, attributing the number to the county coroner and adding that the dead were still being identified.

Family members named some of the victims on Sunday.

Retired pilot Terry Barker was in the B-17 bomber, said Mayor Armin Mizani of Keller, Tex., citing the man’s family as his source. The Army veteran flew helicopters while in the military and then worked for 36 years at American Airlines before retiring in 2020, Mizani said. Also on the bomber was Len Root, said the Allied Pilots Association, the labor union that represents American Airlines pilots.

Maj. Curtis J. Rowe, the crew chief on the B-17, also died, according to his brother-in-law. He was a member of the Ohio Wing Civil Air Patrol.

With News Wire Services