B17 crashed
 

Ot but sad news.

Hood

http://www.wgnradio.com/news/chibrkn...,1357319.story

Sad news indeed: Liberty Belle was a true symbol and it will be impossible to recover it after such a fire damage :-(((

At least no one was hurt. There may be some stuff they can salvage. Center section is completley toast though:(

Damn thats only a few miles from my work.

Ouch sad news :(

Such a shame when there are setbacks like this.

surprising that they didn't have or use a fire extinguisher system installed (radial engines normally come with a CO2 bottle which charge is released in the carb and exhausts to starve the flames) or that they didn't try an emergency landing back at the airport, since it was just one engine fire.

Oh well, too late for speculation, another beauty is lost :(

The pilot got everyone down alive, that's what matters. Shame about the fortress though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Belle_(B-17)

Was an interesting aircraft, unusual background.

US Liberty Bell crashed and burned! Sounds as something from the economy pages today.

But seriusly if we continue to fly the relics they will all be gone in a few years as the are not up to standards and will fail in one way or other sooner or later.
Keep them on the ground.

KEEP THEM ON THE GROUND!!!!

They belong in the air where my son can see them,obviously install modern day technology to keep them safe.
I cant believe i just read that!!
Have you ever been to Duxford or any other air show?
The people that give up there time and money to keep these things flying in memory of the countless lives lost in HISTORY,do it because they believe that this is a fitting memorial!!!

I really cant believe i just read that on a forum like this !!!!


Cheese

Well you just did.
And in a few years your son wont be able to see them in the air or on the ground if we keep up the use and abuse of these relics. How many we got? How many we lost? How many left?
No need to get emotional about it.

Aw that's tragic :(:(:(

She was a great looking aircraft. I remember seeing her at Duxford UK in 2008. Glad the crew is ok, lovely bunch of people.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/picture...&pictureid=738

[youtube]o8Mi9WoQD_4[/youtube]

Oh? will they be clearing out all the static examples out of museums?

if there are people willing to fly these things using their own money and/or charitable donation then let them continue.

Precisely there are loads of examples with clipped wings, this was an unfortunate accident and they/we should strive to make more flyable.

Obviously you've never seen a B-17 flying, or 11 spitfires flying a tailchase..

Don't be too dramatic, there's plenty of static B-17 in the world, we need to keep them airborne. Funnily enough, keeping them airborne is the best way to preserve them in years to come, because keeping them airworthy means keeping them serviced and in running order.

Exactly ! A lot of flyng warbirds were actually saved from becoming decaying wrecks.

Still counts as one kill. No EK for you yet, missy!

And not to mention that the only reason airshows are so popular is because of the flying examples. I go to Duxford to see the flying legends, the museum pieces are just there.

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.

True, could have been the supercharger.

On the old side of things i wasn't referring to the actual age of the material but the type of aluminium used, aluminum has come a long way since the types/alloys that were first being used on aircraft.

There was a fire in the wing well behind the inboard starboard engine (photos on line). Supposedly the a/c had been grounded to fix a leaking fuel tank. Used some epoxy to fix the leak, so I would say the epoxy let go and the leaking fuel caught fire.

Been informed that the head of maintenance of the a/c is borderline incompetent.

yep, no matter what kind of alloy, it still burns darn quick once ignited :-(

that's a lot of speculation and I somehow doubt that the head of maintenance would be an incompetent guy, the plane has been flying for many years and nobody would put the maintenance of such a machine in the hands of someone who's not up to the job.. Again, let's wait for the CAA report on the accident..

Slightly OT:

On this forum i did hear that the aluminium that the germans used was inferior to that used by the allies, it would be nice to see the material specs and compare them (damn it engineering is supposed to be my job not my hobby :-|).

No speculation on the a/c as the a/c had been grounded on the weekend for some kind of maintenance. The a/c exploded in flames after touch down which would happen with no air flow. Gee, just what fuel does.

The comment on the head of maintenance was made by a guy that restores a/c.

Good to see the crew got out okay.
There will be a lot of engineers sweating now waiting for the investigation- the civil aviation guys are very thorough, and that looks like a grease monkey did something they shouldn't or missed something they should have seen.

I say keep 'em flying. There's nothing to compare with seeing these static objects become flying machines again. Accidents will happen, it's a statistical fact, but they can be rebuilt.

yeah, that's the typical hangar bitching, as soon as something goes wrong people start talking $hit about others.. seen it happen before..

Let's look at FACTS: here is a dramatic photo sequence of the fire:

http://www.wgnradio.com/news/chi-110...1.photogallery

as you can see they managed to land the plane properly, and the fire is on the engine 2 area. If you look closer the prop of engine 2 is actually feathered, which means that it's likely the engine and/or supercharger are at the base of the fire.

Once the fire was out of control, all they could do was look at the plane torching away :-(

The pilot did good!
 

It's annoying that all the headlines say " crashed and burned", when the pictures show that the pilot made a brilliant landing. Everyone got clear...
That's great skill under the circumstances! Sad, but could have been so much worse!

Some thing as simple as a rag used to clean a part or catch a drip while changing oil accidentally left behind could be enough to cause a fire. Once a fire was able to take hold and the fuel tank caught its time to get out of there. Its hard to imagine the flames and heat that amount of av-gass would produce.

you are SO right!!!

The A/C got down safely and all crew got out unharmed. Nothing lasts forever. I'm glad the Boeing spent it's last day doing what it was built for: flying, not rotting away in a museum!!!

All these years later and she still brought her crew down in one piece before she gave up the ghost. RIP Belle.

What a sad loss. All praise to the command crew who brought her down.

I think it is a bit premature to be allocating blame at this stage. There will be a full FAA investigation which will have all the facts.

A shatter fuel line could stem from a speck of carbon trapped in the material 70 years go when it was manufactured. Who Knows? Best ones to find out are the official investigators.

Cheers!

Probably was the auxiliary PSU....

didn't know B-17s came with a Power Steering Unit ;0)

joking aside, what makes you think so?

Kee Bird rings a bell?

Mmmh it's a gross comparison. First of all that was a B-29, which was tentatively salvaged in a borderline criminal way (and a man died for the appalling salvaging conditions); second thing, the fire spread in the tail section from a leaking fuel tank of an improvised APU installed by the team in an improbable place, nothing to do with the plane itself.

Again in this case my wild guess again is that something outside the reach of the CO2 extinguisher in the engine bay 2 failed: electric pump, supercharger or some other ancillary.

Bear in mind that the fire was apparently only spotted by a P-40 pilot flying formation with the B-17, so they had no sign on board, and it wasn't an explosive fire, so I would rule out the vapour build up in the wing box due to a leaking fuel line (another problem with B-17s).

I'm sure they'll come out with a report at some point, the FAA is always quite zealous when it comes to warbirds and safety.

it was just a sarcastic joke, bro.

sorry bro, sometimes sarcasm gets lost in forums ;)

I think V-tech kicked in on that engine first. Never mess with V-tech yo.

How many people would,ve seen her if she had stayed in a building compared to how many saw her not only across the USA but also in Europe.I was lucky enough to see her fly at Duxford in England,thousands saw her over here in that short space of time.
In a museum she would have been collecting dust and meaning nothing to those who had never seen or heard one in flight.
She could still be rebuilt and put back into a museum so no loss there really.
If they hadn't rebuilt her to fly she may not have survived anyway.
In the UK we have Mary Alice B17 static at Duxford,that is now being stripped down to her bare bones for "conservation" ,she has been sitting in a museum gathering dust and slowly disintegrating for years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-13471334
And they damaged her getting her out
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/sho...ght=mary+alice
I think i would rather see them kept in flying condition and looked after.
Oh don't forget museums burn down,get flooded out and hit by tornados as well.

exactly, although I doubt Liberty Belle will be reconstructed.
True shame about the DX b-17.. bunch of monkeys...