It was anything but luck. For decades, airshows have had federally mandated rules that prevent planes from flying over the crowds of people who are watching them fly. The catastrophic, mechanical failure-caused crash of a highly modified North American P-51 race plane into the crowd at Reno in which the pilot and ten spectators were killed—69 more spectators were injured—caused the FAA to tighten up the regulations further. The two planes that collided and crashed in Dallas were flying where they were supposed to flying. The real question is why one flew into the other.
Was it just luck that kept people on the ground from being killed or injured in Dallas?
Key Takeaways:
- Federally mandated airshow rules prohibit planes from flying over crowds, a safety measure tightened after the catastrophic Reno P-51 crash that killed eleven people and injured many more.
- The recent Dallas mid-air collision, unlike the Reno incident, involved planes flying in their designated areas, raising the primary question of why the collision occurred between them.
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