Bad planning caused deadly Texas air show crash, investigators say
WASHINGTON — The fatal crash of two vintage military aircraft at a Texas air show in 2022 was caused by a lack of proper planning to keep planes separated and instead relying on a “see-and-avoid strategy” by pilots, federal investigators said Monday.
A Bell P-63F fighter plane was descending and banking to the left when it clipped the left wing of a Boeing B-17G bomber from behind. All six people aboard the World War II planes – the fighter pilot and the bomber’s pilot, co-pilot and three other crew members – were killed.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said Monday that the pilots’ vision was limited by their flight paths, obstacles in the cockpits and “the attention demands associated with air show performance.”
Investigators said the probable cause of the accident was the lack of a briefing on aircraft separation by the show’s organizer and the “air boss,” who used binoculars and a walkie-talkie to direct pilots. Instead, they “relied on the boss’s airborne real-time deconfliction directives and see-and-avoid strategy to avoid collisions,” researchers said.
The show was presented by the Memorial Air Forcea non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of military aircraft. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The conclusions were closely similar preliminary findings that the board released at the end of 2022.
Aviation safety experts have said they were surprised that there was no advance briefing on keeping planes at different altitudes, and that such planning takes place at other air shows. A person familiar with the show’s activities that day said that during a pre-show briefing, pilots were given general altitude instructions but did not discuss specific altitudes for each pass the plane would make.
The NTSB also accused the Federal Aviation Administration of a lack of guidance for air bosses and air show organizers and requirements to continually evaluate air bosses and monitor their performance. The board said it would publish a final report on Thursday.