At least two crew members have been reported dead as an airplane had collided in mid-air at a show which was taking place in Dallas with some witness footage showing Saturday’s crash which had ended in a fiery explosion on the ground.
By early Sunday it was still unclear exactly how many people had been in the two aircrafts which had crashed, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a smaller Bell P-63 Kingcobra, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
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But the Allied Pilots Association, the collective bargaining agent for American Airlines, confirmed two of its retired members died in the Texas accident.
“Our hearts go out to their families, friends, and colleagues past and present,” the group said late Saturday in a statement on Twitter.
It was not yet known whether anyone survived the afternoon crash, which had reportedly occurred during the Wings Over Dallas Airshow at Dallas Executive Airport.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called the incident “a terrible tragedy,” and said on Twitter that “no spectators or others on the ground were reported injured.”
Hank Coates, the chief executive of the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) whose planes were involved in the accident, said the B-17 “normally has a crew of four or five,” while the P-63 is operated by a single-pilot.
He said the Sunday part of the air show was cancelled.
In another report, the Ukrainian Government has confimed that world’s largest aircraft, the Antonov AN-225 Mriya, has been destroyed by a Russian attack on an airport near Kyiv.
A Ukraine government official Twitter account revealed this on Monday in a tweet which was sighted by Africa Today News, New York.
Before now, the aircraft known as Mriya, which translates to ‘dream,’ had been sitting in its hangar at a Ukrainian air base in Hostomel.
The base was the site of intense clashes on Thursday when the Russian military took its control.
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies show significant damage to part of the hangar in which the AN-225 is stored.