The Victims Of The Dallas Air Show Are Named. Ntsb Investigation Ongoing

The Air Force Memorial, which took over the broadcast, identified the victims as: Terry Barker, Craig Hutain, Kevin “K5” Michels, Dan Ragan, Leonard “Len” Root and Curt Rowe.  They died Saturday when a World War II-era bomber and a fighter jet collided and crashed in a ball of flames, scaring spectators gathered for an air show that opened on Veterans Day.
Several videos posted on social media show the fighter jet flying at the bomber.
All the men were volunteers, but each had gone through a rigorous process of logging hours and training flights and were carefully vetted, Commemorative Air Force CEO Hank Coates said at a weekend news conference.
“This is not their first rodeo,” Coates said.  “These guys are very well experienced.  A lot of them are airline pilots, retired airline pilots, retired military pilots like me.
“These are very well-trained people who have been doing this for a long time.”
Officials have not publicly identified which of the victims was flying the plane.
Hutain, of Montgomery, Texas, has been a commercial airline pilot since 1985. He began flying at age 10 and has logged more than 34,500 flight hours, according to his LinkedIn page.
In a recent interview with Vintage Aviation News posted on YouTube, Hutain described aviation as a “lifelong obsession” passed down from his father, a bomber pilot in World War II.  He described having to use pillows to prop him up in the seat of the first plane he learned to fly.
“It’s near and dear to my heart,” Hutain said.  “I’ve always been a pilot.”
Armin Mizani, mayor of Keller, Texas, said Barker was a retired pilot who lived in Keller, a town of 50,000 where many of the residents know each other.
“It’s definitely a great loss to our community,” he said.  “We mourn.”
Barker was an Army veteran who flew helicopters during his military service.  He later worked for American Airlines for 36 years before retiring in 2020, Mizani said.
Rowe, a member of the Ohio Air Force Wing, was a crew chief in the B-17, his brother-in-law Andy Keller told The Associated Press on Sunday.  Rowe, of Hilliard, Ohio, did air shows several times a year because he fell in love with World War II aircraft, Keller said.
Root, also of Keller, was a pilot and director of the Commemorative Air Force Gulf Coast Wing who worked for the past year as a commercial pilot for various companies, according to his LinkedIn page.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collision, including why both planes were flying at the same altitude and in the same airspace, NTSB member Michael Graham said.
Graham said investigators are analyzing radar and video to pinpoint the exact location of the crash.  He said most of the debris from the crash was strewn on airport property and would be carefully examined, along with recordings from the air traffic control tower, pilot training records and aircraft maintenance records.
Neither aircraft was equipped with a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder, separate devices collectively called black boxes, and none were required to have those devices, Graham said.
Although rain prevented the collection of pieces of the B-17 bomber, Graham said Monday that an electronic flight display from the B-17 and a GPS navigation unit from the fighter, both damaged in the crash, would be sent to a laboratory NTSB to see if data can be recovered.
“The data that these types of units might have … would be things like GPS location, possible altitudes of the aircraft and airspeeds of the aircraft,” Graham said during a news conference.
He also said it’s possible the NTSB will consider recommending that vintage aircraft, like those involved in Saturday’s crash, have flight data recorders on board.
The crash came three years after a bomber crashed in Connecticut that killed seven, and amid continued concern over the safety of air shows featuring older warplanes.  The company that owned the planes that flew in the Wings Over Dallas show had other crashes in its 60-year history.
Investigators will examine wreckage from both aircraft, interview crews present at the air show and obtain pilot training and aircraft maintenance records.
“We’re going to look at what we can and let the evidence basically lead us to the appropriate conclusions.  At this point, we’re not going to speculate” on the cause, Graham said.
A preliminary report from the NTSB is expected in four to six weeks, while a final report will take up to 18 months to complete.
A cornerstone of American air power during World War II, the B-17 is a massive four-engine bomber used in daylight raids against Germany.  The Kingcobra, an American fighter plane, was used primarily by Soviet forces during the war.  Most B-17s were scrapped at the end of World War II, and only a few remain today, largely on display in museums and air shows, according to Boeing.

title: “The Victims Of The Dallas Air Show Are Named. Ntsb Investigation Ongoing " ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-13” author: “Tracie Nolting”

The Air Force Memorial, which uploaded the broadcast, identified the victims as: Terry Barker, Craig Hattin, Kevin “K5” Michels, Dan Ragan, Leonard “Len” Root and Kurt Rowe.  They died Saturday when a World War II-era bomber and a fighter jet collided and crashed in a ball of flames, scaring spectators gathered for an air show that opened on Veterans Day.
Several videos posted on social media show the fighter jet flying at the bomber.
All the men were volunteers, but each had gone through a rigorous process of logging hours and training flights and were carefully vetted, Commemorative Air Force CEO Hank Coates said at a weekend news conference.
“This is not their first rodeo,” Coates said.  “These guys are very well experienced.  A lot of them are airline pilots, retired airline pilots, retired military pilots like me.
“These are very well-trained people who have been doing this for a long time.”
Officials have not publicly identified which of the victims was flying the plane.
Hutain, of Montgomery, Texas, has been a commercial airline pilot since 1985. He began flying at age 10 and has logged more than 34,500 flight hours, according to his LinkedIn page.
In a recent interview with Vintage Aviation News posted on YouTube, Hutain described aviation as a “lifelong obsession” passed down from his father, a bomber pilot in World War II.  He described having to use pillows to prop him up in the seat of the first plane he learned to fly.
“It’s near and dear to my heart,” Hutain said.  “I’ve always been a pilot.”
Armin Mizani, mayor of Keller, Texas, said Barker was a retired pilot who lived in Keller, a town of 50,000 where many of the residents know each other.
“It’s definitely a great loss to our community,” he said.  “We mourn.”
Barker was an Army veteran who flew helicopters during his military service.  He later worked for American Airlines for 36 years before retiring in 2020, Mizani said.
Rowe, a member of the Ohio Air Force Wing, was a crew chief in the B-17, his brother-in-law Andy Keller told The Associated Press on Sunday.  Rowe, of Hilliard, Ohio, did air shows several times a year because he fell in love with World War II aircraft, Keller said.
Root, also of Keller, was a pilot and director of the Commemorative Air Force Gulf Coast Wing who worked for the past year as a commercial pilot for various companies, according to his LinkedIn page.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the collision, including why both planes were flying at the same altitude and in the same airspace, NTSB member Michael Graham said.
Graham said investigators are analyzing radar and video to pinpoint the exact location of the crash.  He said most of the debris from the crash was strewn on airport property and would be carefully examined, along with recordings from the air traffic control tower, pilot training records and aircraft maintenance records.
Neither aircraft was equipped with a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder, separate devices collectively called black boxes, and none were required to have those devices, Graham said.
Although rain prevented the collection of pieces of the B-17 bomber, Graham said Monday that an electronic flight display from the B-17 and a GPS navigation unit from the fighter, both damaged in the crash, would be sent to a laboratory NTSB to see if data can be recovered.
“The data that these types of units might have … would be things like GPS location, possible altitudes of the aircraft and airspeeds of the aircraft,” Graham said during a news conference.
He also said it’s possible the NTSB will consider recommending that vintage aircraft, like those involved in Saturday’s crash, have flight data recorders on board.
The crash came three years after a bomber crashed in Connecticut that killed seven, and amid continued concern over the safety of air shows featuring older warplanes.  The company that owned the planes that flew in the Wings Over Dallas show had other crashes in its 60-year history.
Investigators will examine wreckage from both aircraft, interview crews present at the air show and obtain pilot training and aircraft maintenance records.
“We’re going to look at what we can and let the evidence basically lead us to the appropriate conclusions.  At this point, we’re not going to speculate” on the cause, Graham said.
A preliminary report from the NTSB is expected in four to six weeks, while a final report will take up to 18 months to complete.
A cornerstone of American air power during World War II, the B-17 is a massive four-engine bomber used in daylight raids against Germany.  The Kingcobra, an American fighter plane, was used primarily by Soviet forces during the war.  Most B-17s were scrapped at the end of World War II, and only a few remain today, largely on display in museums and air shows, according to Boeing.