Based on this report do you think there will be any criminal charges on the airboss or event organizers?

No. But the civil suits are going to be epic.
Sad thing is nothing is going to bring those guys who perished back.
But like the rule for all pilots….. we can learn from our mistakes and perhaps make changes to save lives and prevent mishaps in the future.
There is not one person involved in any of this that wanted it to happen.

It's wild that there wasn't assigned altitude blocks for different formations maneuvering in that proximity. Many of those old cockpits have very poor visibility over the nose and low wing. Easiest deconflict method and every aircraft has an altimeter. Very sad indeed always good to learn and improve safety for the next show.

Depending on which act they are doing they do have assigned altitudes for different planes. Usually determined by those plane types speed……along with defined flight lines as well.
I have flown an L-bird in some of the shows and at briefing they gave us altitudes and flight paths to follow.
We were slow so usually we were assigned the lowest altitude and the faster planes above us etc. But we were still suppose to follow the directions of the air boss for any needed adjustments or changes.

Very good comment. Sadly this will cost the CAF and others millions of dollars. Lawyers and the IRS will benefit the most, the surviving families will get some….. but it won't negate their grief and loss.
Eventually it will cause these aircraft to not be flown much and they will be mainly shown in static displays or very limited flying at best I'm afraid.

Yep these old warbirds are really incredible to see live. I've donated time to CAF events when they come through our airports and the guys keeping up these aircraft are not getting any younger. Hopefully they are able to weather the bloodsuckers and have a concrete secession plan to keep these things in the air and out of the museum rafters. Always good to have you weigh in gunny, you are a bank of knowledge.

Gunny456 said:

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No. But the civil suits are going to be epic.
Sad thing is nothing is going to bring those guys who perished back.
But like the rule for all pilots….. we can learn from our mistakes and perhaps make changes to save lives and prevent mishaps in the future.
There is not one person involved in any of this that wanted it to happen.

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There will be. Only read about a third of the NTSB report so far but it's pretty damning from the get go. Two phrases in particular is going to cost the CAF big time.

Quote:

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We determined that a lack of administrative controls and a documented risk assessment process for ensuring air show aircraft separation directly contributed to the in-flight collision.

We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the air boss's and air show event organizer's lack of an adequate, prebriefed aircraft separation plan for the air show performance...

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This also stuck out for me and seems to contradict the "new air boss" rumor. Maybe not super experienced to some but he had the highest of four ratings for air boss and obviously the years building up to it.

Quote:

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The air boss stated that he had 20 years of experience as an air boss, having done 16 air shows in the year before the accident and more than 300 during his career. He also held an air traffic control tower operator certificate and a private pilot certificate (neither of which were required for his LOA) with endorsements that included high performance, high altitude, tailwheel, and complex aircraft. He said that his control tower experience was in 2008 and 2009. According to the air boss, air boss qualification was a multi-year process that generally began with time observing other air bosses, discussing theory about different scenarios and building performance schedules, gaining experience on the radio while supervised by another air boss, and continuously building skills. He noted that, for some people, it can take 6 to 8 years, and others may do it in 4 years. He said that the LOA renewal process, which occurs every 3 years, did not require any evaluator observation but rather letters of recommendation and a minimum experience requirement (see section 1.9.3).

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Fighter #2 also vouched for him:

Quote:

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According to an interview summary for the pilot of the position 2 fighter, he recalled that the air boss had issued a long stream of instructions, but he wasn't really paying attention and was focused on the fighter lead. He recalled that, when the air boss told the fighters to get in front of the bombers, he ensured his airplane had separation from the Boeing B-17G, then he shifted his focus back to the fighter lead. He himself had air boss experience and considered the Wings Over Dallas air boss the best in the business. He stated that he absolutely trusted the air boss and the fighter lead pilot.

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Cardiac events were ruled out as unlikely. Remember that popping up in the original thread in 2022. Just another catastrophic chain of human error events that led to fatal event sadly. Seems to be case closed with zero ambiguity left. Did learn that there is no real standardized common terms/phraseology in air show demonstrations via radio comms between pilots and air boss. Blows my mind actually that that has been lacking.