I was completely taken aback by the lack of communication from the pilot to the controller. The pilot never actually asked for priority handling nor mentioned anything severe was happening on board. Not saying that would have made a difference in this instance but communication does sound very casual when listening to it on LiveATC. Terrible accident with terrible results.
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Paul,
I couldn’t agree more.
I’m old enough to remember when a privately owned Sabre Jet crashed into a Sacramento ice cream parlor in 1972. California immediately forbade the operation of private military jets in the state. The GA community was upset, but it exercised restraint. The subsequent investigation revealed glaring deficiencies in the training, oversight and type certification of some warbird operators. That these issues were addressed in a timely manner is the reason we continue to enjoy warbird demonstrations four decades later - including in California.
Today it may be time to take another look at warbird revenue operations. Their designers expected a third of these airplanes to be lost in combat and, maybe, 20% to be lost in accidents. There was a war in progress and getting them off of the drawing board and into the theater was the most urgent requirement. None of the heavier designs remotely meets contemporary certification standards.
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A sooner-initiated turn from the downwind of runway 6 would have put the plane on the ground beyond the runway 6 threshhold. With two miles of pavement available, why fly a pattern that offers ANY chance of landing short of the threshhold?
Better yet, a simple 90-degree left turn from the left downwind of runway 6 would have put the aircraft on final for runway 15 - ABOVE the asphalt, and with half of the altitude loss of making a 180-degree turn.
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why indeed
Well written, Paul. Something to keep in mind rather than paying attention to all the knee-jerking.
Any rich mixture combustion will produce black smoke. That said, a fuel problem crossed my mind as well. Hard to have any other kind of common-power problem on a four-engine aircraft. During the war, I’m sure plenty of B-17s made it home on three engines or less. So a problem with one engine doesn’t explain the accident.
>>Within hours of the crash, Connecticut’s Governor Ned Lamont and Sen. Richard Blumenthal held a press conference. My Facebook feed ignited with a vitriolic and occasionally obscene denunciation of this, claiming that Blumenthal had called for the grounding of all warbirds. If he said it, I can’t find the quote now.
Blumenthal definitely said it. I saw the footage. I had the same reaction as many of your inbox fillers, that it was a statement not based on any facts. Foolish, to be polite.
I agree that this seems unusual, but just like Paul stated about pilots judging the press, we likewise should be circumspect about assessing pilot/crew performance and decision-making. Flying for 26 years in the Air Force, emergency training always and continuously stressed that you: “Aviate, Navigate & Communicate”. There’s a reason communication is last on the list. Those of us that have survived a crash from a malfunctioning aircraft spend many hours questioning what and how we could have done it better. That said, a pilot flying a mechanically crippled aircraft at low altitude will have substantially less performance capability and altitude to work with. They certainly had their hands full and may not have been able to consider the “normal options”.
Mark, et al: Your thoughts and comments all make perfect sense from a smaller airplane / training problem perspective. Once you get into the bigger airplane / multi-motor arena, things change somewhat, especially when things go south in a hurry. I am sure that the NTSB will quite accurately determine what actually happened and present a fairly reasonable explanation of why it all went so “south” so fast.
Now, please do not think that I am demeaning your personal abilities behind the yoke or whatever your experience is. I happen to have 20K hours in large multi-motors, almost all jet. I do happen to have 2K hours in the T-29C/D (CV-240) with the USAF. During one hot summer morning departure from Buckley ANGB in CO in that T-29, we had a very bad seizure of the left engine. It stopped turning in less that 1 revolution. Things got really exciting for about 10 minutes. In those days, Stapleton was there and operational. We crossed that airport at about 50-60 ft agl, just slid over the terminal and eventually got back to Buckley safely for a dual engine change, a couple of other small structural repairs, and a new set of skivvies. The point of that story is that, while ATC was screaming at us, we didn’t hear them or respond other than a very curt / crude STFU transmission until we could breathe after passing over the terminal. We were not task saturated, we were massively overloaded mentally. With respect, I offer that the NTSB will possibly pose something along those lines to explain the lack of comm between the airplane and ATC.
Today’s aircraft are, thankfully, extremely reliable thus, training has evolved into fairly straight forward single item at a time problem solving. Multiple emergency training is now a no-no, however, multiple simultaneous actual emergencies are not, for some strange reason, forbidden in reality… Not saying that that was the case here, but I will wager a large cup of good Wawa coffee that these pilots had their hands full and didn’t have (mental) time to spend talking on the radio or seeing the obvious easy ways to get back on the ground safely.
Just my opinion.
I have a different take on Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s conference. I’m not sure I heard him actually call for the grounding of all warbirds in so many words. What I DID hear was a self-serving “politic-speak/stump speech” about “I have ordered the NTSB to start an investigation” and “they report to MY committee”.
Just in case the Senator is reading this - you could have made all the calls you want - but they were going to investigate anyway. But that’s their job.
Against a rapidly developing situation with a clear potential for loss of life Sen. Richard Blumenthal sounded SO “self-serving Washington-speak” - that believe me - if he was my Senator - there is no way in h3ll I would ever vote for him again.
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“I’m not sure I heard him [Blumenthal] actually call for the grounding of all warbirds in so many words.”
Well, here’s a direct quote from Senator Stolen Valor:
“There should be very serious scrutiny over these planes before they’re allowed back in the air.”
Little ambiguity, IMWO.
Modern does not apply. I’ve watched enough WWII footage to understand that I really don’t want to be in a B29 or a B17 having a landing accident. Declare and then own the airport. Hearing the hesitation on frequency (with a load of passengers and a load of fuel) just seemed odd considering the aircraft being flown. Maybe the problem accelerated really quickly? dunno. Sad to loose good people & planes.
David, T, is right on the money; the enormous cloud of black Smoke is a big clue. Gasoline burns clean and jet fuel will give oodles of Black smoke. Hopefully, there will be photos from people that saw the plane as it came in to land. A lady that saw the plane fly over her house said that one propeller was not turning.
No matter, the B-17’s could withstand head-on cannon and machine gun fire, at close range, and not even cough no’r did the young 20 year old pilots even blink. Something really bad had to have happened to bring this B-17 down. RIP, to the passengers and crew.
The initial NTSB testing of fuel in the #4 engine tank shows 100LL.
I have always believed that these old warbirds belong in museums for historical value and in memory of those who flew them for a really good reason. Are we one day going to entertain fully restored and flying B-1s, B-2s, B-58s, SR-71s, restored and sailing nuclear submarines, and so forth?
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909 was on the second flight of the day with that load of fuel. Normally, the airplane is fueled and preflighted before the ride flights, and “hot loaded”, exchanging passengers with engines running for multiple flights. So misfuelling isn’t possible. They lost one engine and feathered it, but that alone isn’t sufficient to bring down a B17, so something else must have been happening.
Thick black smoke - could be the Ethanol and Propylene Glycol mixture at the De-Ice farm
I disagree. There are plenty of examples of non-flying versions of these aircraft on display in museums throughout the country (and even the world). Many of the flying Warbirds do not have true historical significance because they’re typically late production models that came too late to see active duty or they were practically “rebuilt” from the ground up. Furthermore, I suspect that without the ability to be flown, many of these flying warbirds would never have been recovered and restored in the first place. Keeping a historic aircraft out of the air on static display or in storage somewhere is also no guarantee of infinite preservation since fires and natural disasters can destroy them as well.
Having these aircraft grace the skies and teaching younger generations how to operate and maintain them is as much or more significant to their history than having them simply collect dust in a museum.
It usually takes around 18 months for a final report; it’s been that way for decades. It takes a while for an investigation to generate questions, and for those questions to be answered.
Good editorial.
The question of when to stop flying these increasingly rare machines is a difficult one to answer. There were over 12,700 B-17s built. Reports vary, but somewhere between 9 and 17 are still in flying condition. In the case of the 17, there are many more on static display, so it may make sense to keep the airworthy ones flying. But, at some point, they become so rare that exposing them to flight may be too risky. The Commemorative Air Force lost one of only 2 or 3 flying B-26 Marauders some years ago. With so few remaining even in museums, the truly rare ones deserve to be grounded for posterity sake.
The loss of 909 is tragic, both from the loss of the airframe and the souls on board that perished. My prayers go out to the families as well as the “family” that kept 909 flying.
Maybe he was busy.
A quarter of all deaths in RAF bomber command during the Second World War were training accidents. Heavy bombers of the time were, and are not, easy to fly. It is something today’s pilots and passengers should remember.
I’m reading that the pilot had the most hours in a Boeing B-17 of anyone. Not just currently, but ever.
As the Collings Foundation B-25 got ready to depart BDL, they had a few words of thanks and remembrance for Nine O Nine. Links aren’t allowed in posts, so go to YouTube and search on “9g5TTGTuATA”. It’s the VASA Aviation link. It’s quite touching.
Whether we like it or not insurance companies will probably have the final say if these flights continue or not. Many years ago I paid for and got a right seat ride in a B-25 and enjoyed every second of it. Not long after the owner stopped giving passenger rides due to lack of affordable insurance coverage. It would be a real shame if these kind of flights were stopped/banned. Maybe a solution is a waiver similar to what skydivers sign to be able to jump at most drop zones. May those who lost their lives on that flight RIP.
“… the late eighties and early nineties and even that feels like a thousand years ago.”
Geezus! I got my instrument rating there in 1972 (flying an ADF approach to the old Stapleton) … I guess that makes me a card carrying registered fossil !! 
These planes are"self supported" because parts are not available.
That means that parts are being made up and patched and installed and maintained on a tight budget.
You have a very large, complex, ancient, self-repaired aircraft being filled up with hundreds of gallons of AvGas; and then flying paying passengers. It’s high-risk no matter how you slice it.
These old warbirds teach us of a time young men went to war to save freedom. They flew them with terrible losses, unimaginable courage, and dedication. The younger generations do not comprehend the sacrifices required to permit them to live as they wish. This history is now taught in a sanitized manner for various reasons. I live near an airport and each year the warbirds fly into it. The sound they make and their sight flying over my house can never be forgotten. We need to learn to balance safety, with resource management, and maintenance to keep these warbirds in public view. We cannot forsake their history and their brave crews.
I suspect the crew did suffer, as they reported, a rough mag. No reason not to believe them, they are professionals. Then continued along the downwind to return. That rough mag may have then worsened so they decided to shut down the engine and feather the prop. By then they may have progressed very far down the downwind. But, they may have shut down the wrong engine. Now they’re really slow and adding rudder and it’s accompanying drag, too busy to speak to the tower. Maybe the loss ot two engines caused them to set down short. This is clearly speculation on my part
I was just down the street at an arcade in front of Sacramento Executive airport when this happened. We rode our bikes down and saw just carnage and the tail of an F-86 sticking out from the ice cream parlor. We stayed a short while as fire trucks were still rolling up and did not want to get in the way. The F-86 pilot got impatient and accepted a runway too short for his bird. He was killed flying a F-86 a few years later.
Just watched an update on this mishap. This was all on the pilot in Command. He elected to not do a Mag check which would have shown that #3 had bad Mag. Pilots problem was he knew #4 had a bad Mag. So he skips a Mag check, prop check and power check. Wow. That is confirmed by survivors and the plane was not on the ground long enough prior to T/O. Then pilot immediately feathers #4 without confirming with right seat pilot. Then cylinder #5 on engine #3 grenades itself because a Mag failed and the manual says to not run on one Mag for more than 5 seconds. It is very possible that #4 engine was still producing power, but because he thought that a Mag on #4 was bad that it was #4 engine that needed to be feathered.
Morale to the story? Do your checks before takeoff. Replace Mags when they are bad. Use your co-pilot in confirming emergencies/handle the radios. Keep the gear up until field is made. This very experienced B-17 pilot broke every rule in aviation and took 6 others with him. Sad for evryone.
While I have no idea why Tom did not recover at the onset, this is a powerful reminder for those flying low & slow to be current and sharp on their stall recognition and recovery skills.
Reacting a little better better or slightly sooner can save your life in this regime. Even a docile and tame bird like a Cessna single can snap into a spin on you in the right (wrong?) circumstances.
Not to be judgemental or a Monday morning quarterback, but what was the age of the pilot? I have seen far too many times in safety meetings the average ages of the others, and it’s a quite up there. I am almost 60, and I know my reaction times are not what they used to be. Being in denial about ones skills and abilities isn’t a thing to mess with. Especially in an aircraft.
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I agree, I’m not able to do snap spins on a unicycle off a jump, or see just how much I can push my motorcycle to the edge on and off road… but with age should come the common sense that this really doesn’t need to be done. At over 50 I don’t need to prove I can jump a 50ft ramp in order to impress a girl in the fleeting hope I might get laid.
I did notice this about younger pilots I’ve flown with… They wanted to push the aircrafts abilities to the edge. With their quick reflexes, they get out of trouble… most of the time. I noticed the older pilots I flew with were more reserved in their flying, slower yes, but more deliberate, with far greater decision skills than the younger pilots. The older pilots knew not to put themselves in a bad position where their superior skills were required to get them out of a bad situation.
There does appear to be a time when some pilots in their middle age seem to think it is time to impress again, and this is where even quick reflexes will not save you.
Would a young pilot be doing this STOL competition? probably not, unless they have rich parents that gave the kid a plane to screw around with… in my life time those kids I grew up with that were given the super car or plane… didn’t make it to 50. That is right, they are all dead now and unable to slow down.
So, maybe it isn’t the slowing down with age… maybe it is realizing, I don’t need to climb that ladder and get myself killed. I know of many good pilots over 70. They seem reserved in their actions. Probably why they made it to 70. These are the pilots I watch. I want to make it to 80, because I’ve seen so many that didn’t.
Many 60 year olds are PICs at the airlines. It doesn’t matter whether you are 20 or 80. You don’t fly any airplane on the edge without greatly increasing risk, even a Cessna 140 or Aeronca 7AC.
Not sure why this turned into an age discussion. After just a tiny bit of Internet research, I have learned that Mr. Defoe was neither a newbie nor a senior pilot. So age is irrelevant.
It is a reminder that when you’re flying on the edge of the envelope, you must be on your A game. When low and slow, there’s no time to recover from a stall/spin. I’m so sorry for his family—their loss is immeasurable.
Ah, but age is always relevant. Sometimes for the callow youth, others for the hoary oldster. For some strange reason that many of us don’t get (or at even admit to the obvious and… close correlations between the inverse relationships of chronological age and reflexes, decision making, situational awareness, and often hubris. For some pilots the curves bend down sooner than later. MIdlife is usually the apex of our skills and decision making, but some of us still work diligently to overstep our physical and mental limits.
Sad for Tom’s momentary lapse. Another lesson for everyone else who prefers to learn from the bad experiences of others.
Tom was my friend. He was 45 yrs old, an A&P for Textron/Cessna Aviation for many years, a farm boy from North Dakota who went to A&P school out of high school. A fairly new pilot who had already earned his instrument and seaplane ratings. He flew his little 140 back and forth across this country probably a dozen times. He was a very proficient and current tailwheel pilot. Many pilots with much more experience have made the same fatal mistake Tom did and unfortunately, many more will do the same.
It seems that everyone (aside from Cary A.) immediately jumped to speculation about the pilot’s age. Yet no one commented on the fact that the competition had been “postponed because of high winds”. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps those winds were not well-behaved constant-speed straight-line winds, and that it wouldn’t take much of a burble in the breeze on a tight, low-altitude, base-to-final turn to totally destroy the lift and turn the pilot into a pax for two hundred feet. Unfortunately, I doubt he was that high on a STOL approach Every pilot here who has had that happen, and was lucky enough to survive, raise you hand. (Mountain airstrip, terrain-confined pattern, wind blew me downwind, then died on B2F turn, felt elevator soften and dove for the ground short of threshold, just cleared runway end lights, then wind resumed and I ballooned. Landing was smooth; approach was entertaining for those on the ground.)
Seems like he turned onto final and was too close to a slower plane. He should have done a 360 or some other maneuver to allow him to keep his speed up and create some space.
The lesson is that some planes are able to fly slower than you. Keep your speed where you need it to be. Always.
I agree with Chip D. Yes, why is this an age discussion? I don’t remember a Cessna 140 being frequently mentioned as a great STOL plane. Why is it even in such a competition? Reaction time of a human of ANY age can never keep up with sudden wind changes while low and slow with all airspeed margins gone! My flight instruction always said on gusty days, add 5 mph to the approach speed to account for a sudden calm, or even a tail gust. It’s just added insurance that costs you nothing.
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Age is why I quit flying and teaching in 2021. I had a wonderful time since 1947, but your reaction time slows down. I have flown a variety of aircraft, BE-18,DC-3 and MU2 ,singles and twins. Taught countless people to fly safely, but at 86 I think it’s time to quit. Even if you can still get a valid class 2 medical. Fell so sorry for the 140 driver and his family.
Flying a Maule I also enjoy continuing to train and practice short field operations but for me at least I’d never compete.
For me, not a good risk benefit ratio.
With that said I understand but if no one’s life depends on it, I’ll only get so close to the edge of the envelope that I remain with a safety margin.
Found online - http://tomdafoe.com/index.php/about-tom/
Such a shame. Watching the video, it seems he was well after the base/final turn. It looks to my inexpert eye like he was too close to the competitor ahead and instead of a 360 he tried to slow it way down outside ground effect & misjudged.
About the reality of recovering from a stall near the ground:
When I was a (young) Instructor here in Phoenix, I was flying in our practice area early one morning with a student the day after cold front passage. It had rained the day before, so the desert air here was still moist. A thin stratus layer had formed over a largish man-made lake here at 5000’ MSL. (“Thin” as in, “I could see through the layer and could see any traffic under it.”)
I told my student that this would be a PERFECT opportunity to practice Departure stalls - for “real.”
So I slowed down to 50 kts (in a C-152) skimming the top of the layer, as if it were a runway on the ground. Then I went to full throttle in a max performance climb, with AOA ever increasing.
We stalled about about 200’ above the layer. (Simulating a stall at 200’ AGL.)
I’m happy to report that, proficient (young) instructor that I was, I recovered quickly from the stall in text book fashion.
Only to encounter a secondary stall immediately after.
See, I had never practice a stall at 200’ AGL. When you stall down low, the ground comes up VERY FAST! And so I instinctively pulled up to get away from the “ground.”
Fortunately, with my (then-) quick reflexes, I recovered from the secondary stall with about 50 feet to spare.
I’m ashamed that I secondary stalled it. But it was a good lesson for me that all our practicing of stalls way up high does not really reflect what it would be like to stall after takeoff or on Final. It’s scary.
So the obvious statement - it’s best not to stall near the ground. Know your plane and know how it feels in an imminent stall, and keep it from stalling near the ground. Period.
(Hint: I have found, since then, that our eyes in these (panic?) situations tend to lock straight ahead - in a tunnel-vision, tele-photo sort of way - depriving us of all sorts of visual input (a bird’s eye view of the actual situation, attitude info, etc.). It wasn’t until I took some aerobatics that I learned to keep my vision “open” - in a wide-angle sort of way - to take in the Big Picture. With the wide view, these situations near the ground aren’t quite as scary.)
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I’m noy sure why discussions about articles like these often jump to age or sex as having anything to do with anything.
My first thought was actually “I’m surprised there aren’t more crashes like these in STOL competitions”. They’re fairly high-risk events, compounded by the competition factor to get as close to the edge as possible while being judged. To me, the reward just isn’t worth the risk.
I’m with Gary… This isn’t about age or other demographics, or Cessna’s or other model aircraft. The entire STOL Rodeo/Competition thing is high risk activity, and destined to lead to more accidents and injuries than non-competitions. Practicing is good, and doing so at safe altitudes is much better… Flying at (or below…) stall speed a few feet or a hundred feet above the ground is more likely to end poorly than doing so at 1,000’ or above…
Well, he wasn’t yet in the “high risk” part of flying the backside of the power curve. As others have mentioned, he likely thought himself too close to the plane ahead, and rather than S-turn (having been based at a busy field, I’m used to that) he slowed down. And when the plane stalled, it appears (until someone comes up with better video) that the appropriate actions weren’t taken.
Absolutely yes! And there will be more as these competitions get more and more numerous.
If you’ve seen the video, then you’ll see it wasn’t during the base-to-final turn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K96RlzP6RTo&t=751s (12:20)
There was another airplane ahead of and above him. He was in what appeared to be straight and level flight, then turned slightly to the right and just went down.
Cameron, holding “competitions” where the norm is flying right at (or below) the white arc, at very low altitude, leaves no margin for safety.
You won’t even place in a STOL competition flying POH defined approach profiles at POH speeds unless you have some sort of super-STOL aircraft. So yes, it’s going to happen as long as STOL competitions are a thing because the margin for error is essentially zero. A lapse of concentration or a swing of the variable wind and you’re going to have a stall when you’re flying basically as close to critical AoA as possible as a matter of course.
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And spot landing contests, too. They really aren’t much different.
This has nothing to do with a STOL competition or type aircraft.
Your aircraft does not know one day to the next much less is aware that it is flying in a STOL competition.
The type aircraft is no factor either. You could compete in a 747, Maule, Kit Fox, C150. Matters not.
Physics doesn’t change. The POH numbers don’t change because you’re in a competition.
What matters, is how you fly the airplane.
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This did not happen as part of the STOL drag. STOL Drag has classes, so you can absolutely fly a Cessna 140 in the STOL Drag and safely compete against other planes of similar performance categories. I’ve seen a Cirrius compete and do pretty till they had to drop out due to brakes over heating.
Thats as good as account that I have read of the whole tragic affair. The stall and recovery at low altitude vs high altitude is salutary, and the tunnel vision effect cured or mitigated by aerobatic training another. Also the 180 return at altitude dead stick and see what height you gobble is another. Low altitude unintentional stalls are out no matter how good your reflexes are-young or old!
Well said Arthur.
You’ve either intentionally misrepresented what I said to try and win internet points or completely missed it and need to read it again. I will distill it to the essential points for you.
Fact: You will not even place in a STOL competition flying approaches as defined and intended by the people who made the airplane, they leave a margin for error/safety/bad conditions.
Fact: STOL competitors consistently flying right on the edge of stall which is inherently more risky than flying textbook approaches.
Fact: STOL competitions and their competitors are at inherently high risk for this sort of crash because they are flying at the ragged edge of the airplane’s capability which leaves almost no room for pilot error.
Fact: STOL competitors are people and people make mistakes. When people make mistakes and there’s no room for them bad things happen.
You cannot argue against these, they’re incontrovertible truth and the crux of what I said.
Tyler:
Fact: You can not fly your airplane safely and successfully outside its limitations.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a highly modified STOL home built or a 747. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a STOL competition or, grabbing a $100 hamburger.
The nature of the mission does not add an extra few degrees to critical AOA.
Hence, the STOL competition is no factor. How the airplane is flown, is a factor.
I think he meant aircraft’s, the possessive.