Liberty Belle B-17 Forced Landing & Fire... And My Close Call

Liberty Belle B-17 Monday morning in field near Aurora, IL airport (photo: Daily Herald)

Daily Herald report
Examiner.com report
LiveATC.net tower recording (MUST login or register to hear)
Liberty Belle 360 panorama interactive image (requires flash) 

 I was scheduled to ride in Liberty Belle on her very next flight.

The Liberty Foundation B-17 known as Liberty Belle caught fire inflight and was forced to land this morning shortly after takeoff from the Aurora, Illinois airport. Fortunately, all seven people on board escaped without serious injury, but the aircraft sustained a tremendous amount of damage.

 Normally I don't make an effort to post about serious aircraft accidents as there is never a shortage of sources to learn of such events. However, if the situation has some vitally important lessons to learn, or if it hits close to home, I'll definitely say something about it. This time, it hits pretty close to home.

 In an unusual set of circumstances, I found out early this morning that a Liberty Belle flight scheduled to take place in Indianapolis at 1pm today did indeed have a seat set aside for me. I knew of the flight for a couple weeks, but some mis-communication kept me from knowing I was all set. I'd given up on having an amazing second opportunity to ride in a B-17. (see my first ride in Yankee Lady here) But here I was heading out the door at about 10:00am for a two hour drive to Indianapolis Regional Airport (formerly Mount Comfort) for a ride in Liberty Belle to help promote the upcoming Father's Day rides being made available next weekend.

 Shortly after I left the house, the B-17 departed Aurora Airport in Illinois headed for Indianapolis. Right after takeoff a fire appears to have broken out in one of the engines. Fortunately the pilots had some open fields under them and it seems they did a great job getting the aircraft on the ground. However, the fire spread rapidly and wound up consuming almost all of the fuselage. Fortunately there was enough time for everyone to get out essentially unharmed. 

 This whole situation is even more interesting to me in that I went to high school in Aurora, Illinois and did some of my flying out of the Aurora Airport. We lived in a condo just two miles from the end of the runway. Most of my flying tho was done out a little further west at Hinkley where my dad had both a Citabria and a Schweizer 1-35 sailplane. Anyway, it's a pretty unusual set of circumstances to have this B-17 nearly destroyed so close to where I lived for four years, especially when I was supposed to be inside it on the very next flight. Interesting day to say the least.

 Ultimately I'm really only concerned for the safety of those who where on board, and it looks like they are all ok. The airplane can always be rebuilt... and I certainly hope it is.

Comments

[A Golightly]

That is a sad, sad day for the vintage warbirds community. Thank goodness everyone is okay, but it still hurts that an old beauty is burnt down now.

[airline limousine service]

This truly was a sad day for the vintage aviation community. Such a lovely machine turned to burnt and twisted metal scraps.