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Liberty Belle emergency landing, all on board safe but plane burned up


N.O.S.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-crews-responding-to-incident-involving-wwii-bomber-20110613,0,5852034.story

 

Desperately sad news breaking on U.S. news and the aviation forums. :-(

 

Just changed title as this was not a crash - an engine fire shortly after take-off resulted in an emergency landing, expertly executed by all accounts, but fire then took hold.

Edited by Jack
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Very sorry to hear the news that another warbird, especially a heavy bomber, has been lost. At least on a positive point it did make a sucessfull emergency landing and all onboard where able to walk away.

 

We can only imagine how the Liberty Foundation must be feeling and I for one spent much of lastnight, thinking how very privaliged I was to fly in her back in 2008 over Suffolk and wondering how I can pay them back for that once in a lifetime flight.

 

Perhaps once the dust has settled and the Liberty Foundation has made a decision on whether to rebuild or not then I for one will be making a donation towards there cause.

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By the intensity of the fire, I'd guess the airframe is only suitable for the salvage of small parts, engines, landing gear etc. Having seen the photos of B-17 'Mary Alice' being stripped down for restoration, the separated parts show just how complex a mechanism the B-17 is. Someone said that Don Brooks had a second B-17 recovered from a lake. Perhaps in time, 'Liberty Belle' will help resurrect this other B-17 to its former glory.

 

EDIT - The recovered B-17 - http://www.nwrain.net/~newtsuit/b17labrador/8-27-04.html

Edited by Jessie The Jeep
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