Vintage

The headline said:  Two vintage World War Two-era planes have collided and crashed at an air show in the US state of Texas, killing six people.

Of course, as with anything that happens anywhere, there is video available, showing the planes colliding at low altitude. One of the planes breaks in half, causing a fireball that plunges to earth.

These planes were involved in an air show near Dallas over the past weekend. One of them was a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The B-17 bombers were a huge part in our defeat of Germany in World War II.

Six people on board the planes died; there were no injuries to the people watching.

Two former American Airlines pilots - Terry Barker and Len Root - were among the dead, so it's not as it these were unskilled pilots up there. Something went wrong; we don't know just what.

 

These airshows draw big crowds on weekends all across America. The crowd in Dallas was estimated at between 4,000 and 6,000.  Chris Kratovil was an eyewitness, and he told a BBC reporter he had "never seen a crowd grow more quiet or more still in just a blink of an eye".

"It went from being a fairly excited, energetic crowd... to complete silence and stillness, and a lot of people, including myself, turned their children towards them and away from the airfield because there was burning wreckage in the middle of the airfield."

I asked someone who posted pictures of this on Instagram whether it was wise for people to take aging airplanes up for exhibition purposes. 

One responder said that "they died doing what they loved."

Another said, "no one was forced to be up there. It's not necessary to drive cars, but I bet you still do."

A third person said, "History needs to preserved (sic) no matter the costs. These history buffs and reenactors knew that there's always a risk. They died keeping history alive."

Sometimes, just when I think I'm starting to understand people, I get told that it's ok to die just so some people can see an old airplane fly over them.

I have no wish to die, but there are things to die for. History is not one of them.