The four-engine, propeller-driven Flying Fortress struggled to get into the air and slammed into a maintenance building at the airport near Hartford as the pilots circled back for a landing, officials and witnesses said at the time of the crash.
Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that an inspection of the engines that failed would have shown that some parts were worn beyond repair.
The 200-page lawsuit, which gives a detailed description of the brief flight and the plight of each person on the aircraft, also alleges that the passengers were not given proper safety instructions and two of them were seated on the floor of the aircraft instead of in seats.
“Neither the Pilot in Command, nor any of the other crew members, informed the passengers of the flight's peril, advised them what to do or instructed them to brace for a crash,” according to the lawsuit. “The passengers were left to presume what was happening.”
The Federal Aviation Administration in March r evoked the foundation’s permission to carry passengers aboard its World War II-era planes.
https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Lawsuit-filed-over-fatal-crash-of-WWII-era-15327998.php
Hopefully this tragedy will improve the safety and experience of pleasure hops in warbirds rather than causing them to end. These airplanes could be temperamental and jump up and bite their pilots back when they were fresh off the factory floor and they were maintained by large experienced ground crews with an abundance of parts and support, 70 years on, if a company can't afford the upkeep its best to hang it up rather than risk this sort of awful result.
ReplyDeleteThe FAA had told Collings that it needed to limit its passengers to those who could handle their own evacuation if necessary. On the fatal flight, one of the passengers got to the airplane aft door using a walker, and it took the help of two people to get him aboard.
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