That's a total loss. The fire definitely started inside that craft some where possibly and likely electrical.

According to eye witnesses it was an engine fire. Electrical fires are extremely improbable with the air regulations on electrical plants.

Very interesting indeed!

The B-17G (SN 44-85734) did not see combat in World War II, and was originally sold on June 25, 1947 as scrap to Esperado Mining Co. of Altus, OK; it was then sold again later that year for $2,700 to Pratt & Whitney, who operated the B-17 from November 19, 1947 to 1967 as a heavily modified test bed for their P&W T34 turboprop engine under the registration N-5111N. Similar to registration numbers 44-85747 and 44-85813, it became a five-engined aircraft, having the prototype engine mounted on the nose. The aircraft was flown single-engine, with all four radial engines feathered during test flights.

How spooky that the original liberty belle was lost due to an on board fire.....

only thing is that I see no evidence of any serious engine fire on the pics, all four are relatively intact, but the centre fuselage is burned out.........

There was smoke trailing from the aircraft apparently, this doesn't mean that it spread from the engine it could easily have been a fuse box something similar to the one that gutted a 787 during flight test.

You have to remember that these are old aircraft and are made with aluminium that catches fire and burns easily, I don't think that current aluminium alloy aircraft would burn quite that quickly.

that suks :(:( good no one hurt

That one B-29 which was recovered from ice also went up in flames, those 4 engined birds seem to attract fire.

I cant think of many "fuse boxes" in the wing of a B-17,if there was an electrical fire it would have spreaded in the fuselage,but then again with 7 people on board I reckon that they would have been able to put the fire down..

It could have been a supercharger failure,which might have caused a fire under the wing (hence the visibility from below and the ineffective fire extinguisher procedure). I suppose we will have to wait for the CAA report.

Uh and aluminium pretty much burns in the same way,no matter how old (plus bear in mind that most of these birds are re-skinned).

What a terrible loss! Very fortunate that all on board were able to escape basically uninjured as far as I know.