Texas Crash: The Risky Business of Air Shows & Why the World Finds them Wildly Entertaining | Explained

At least six people died after two World War II-era planes collided at an air show in Dallas, US authorities said, with social media footage showing the planes colliding and exploding on the ground.

Officials would not say how many people were on board the planes, but Hank Coates, president of the company that put on the airshow, said one of the planes, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, typically has a crew of four to five people. The other, a P-63 Kingcobra fighter plane, has a single pilot. It was unclear whether anyone survived the early afternoon crash at Dallas Executive Airport, which occurred during the Wings Over Dallas airshow.

An air show is a public event at which aircraft are displayed. They frequently include aerobatic demonstrations; otherwise, they are referred to as “static air shows” with aircraft parked on the ground. Wings Over Dallas bills itself as “America’s Premier World War II Airshow,” according to a website advertising the event. The show was scheduled for November 11-13, Veterans Day weekend, and guests were to see more than 40 World War II-era aircraft. Its Saturday afternoon schedule of flying demonstrations included the “bomber parade” and “fighter escorts” that featured the B-17 and P-63.

However, for years, air show safety has been a concern, particularly with older military aircraft.

A Concerning History?

A team of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators will arrive at the scene of the crash on Sunday. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said the NTSB had taken control of the crash scene, with local police and fire providing support.

After the crash, questions were raised on In 2011, 11 people were killed in Reno, Nevada, when a P-51 Mustang crashed into spectators.

In 2019, a bomber crashed in Hartford, Connecticut, killing seven people. The NTSB said then that it had investigated 21 accidents since 1982 involving World War II-era bombers, resulting in 23 deaths.

Videos of previous Wings Over Dallas events depict vintage warplanes flying low, sometimes in close formation, on simulated strafing or bombing runs. The videos also show the planes performing aerobatic stunts. The FAA was also launching an investigation, officials said.

Are Air Shows Inherently Dangerous?

Over the years, quite a few air show accidents have been seen, not limited to the US.

The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred 20 years ago this year, when a Ukrainian Air Force jet cartwheeled and exploded, killing 77 people in the crowd at an airfield near Lviv. Fourteen years earlier, at a show in Germany, three aircraft from the Italian Air Force display team collided mid-air, killing 67 spectators. In 2015, a Hawker Hunter performing at Shoreham Airport in the United Kingdom crashed into a road, killing 11 motorists.

Taking into perspective these incidents, Josh Sims, for the Inside Hook, reported on whether this made air shows inherently dangerous – for pilots, and for spectators.

The report stated that pilots, as opposed to spectators, do unfortunately die on a regular basis (even top pilots).
But it’s a different story for spectators. The Shoreham crash, he said, was the first major loss of life among spectators at an air show in the United Kingdom in 63 years, following a crash at the Farnborough Air Show in 1952 that killed 29 people.

Officially, no spectator has died at an air show in the United States since 1951. (though there have been adjacent accidents, like a devastating crash in 1972 after a show in Sacramento). The National Transportation Safety Board has recorded 58 incidents since 2008, but these include non-fatal incidents such as planes landing in nearby fields, it said.

‘A Part of the Business’

Jim Breen, founder of the Air Show Network, the largest air show organiser in the United States told Sims that pilots understand the risk, and that accidents are ‘unavoidable’ in the business. However, safeguarding spectators is critical, Breen said, adding that the chances of a plane crashing into spectators are so slim.

Perhaps this explains the overwhelming — and surprising — popularity of these airshows, the report stated, adding that air shows are the second most popular outdoor entertainment in the United Kingdom, trailing only football. Each year, approximately 12 million people in the United States attend one of the 300 or so events held across the country.

The Un-flailing Entertainment

According to the International Council of Air Shows, there are 300 to 325 air shows in the United States each year, with crowds ranging from 2,000 to 200,000. Chicago’s is larger, with an average attendance of 1.7 million people, a report by the Chicago Tribune states.

“The appetite for this type of entertainment is extremely high, and we do think of this as entertainment, competing with everything from movie theaters to sports to monster truck shows. It’s a small but fertile niche,” Breen told InsideHook.

“But once they’ve seen an air show most people think it’s a pretty amazing event, as seeing aircraft go by at 500 mph, 500 feet off the ground might well be. So very strict safety standards are a necessity, and rightly so. It’s a dangerous proposition, much like driving a race car is,” he told the Publication.

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