Question about aircraft lost in fires

SpitfireMK – Which aircraft is the one in your second photo?

It’s very sad that it happened.
The b-29 also claimed the life of one of the recovery crew.
Who worked himself literaly to death!

Sad to think that this plane was so close to becoming the second airworthy B-29 in the world!

Although not a museum fire.

It’s a sad los of the tragic attempt to fly the b-29 kee bird of a greenlad icecap.
Just when the aircraft came at full power a fire broke out in the APU consuming a incredebile piece of aviation history.
(The pic is quite big and I don’t how to make it smaller)

In addition to those already mentioned an aviation Museum in Uruguay was destroyed by fire in the late 90s. Once fire takes hold in an aircraft Museum collection – particularly when fabric covered aircraft are involved – it is extremely hard to stop.

However, this being said I think it is factually incorrect to say that more historic aircraft have been destoyed in Museum fires than in accidents with historic aircraft. Check out the NTSB website, you can search their database of accidents in the USA. Taking just one aircraft manufacturer in one country, there have been 102 accidents involving North American types since 1993, and 58 fatalities.

sad to say

The reason fires in collections dont hit big news because unlike a airshow crash they are not normally such a shocking or gory thing as a plane crash,modern news runs on shock horror violence and alike so they enjoy it and it sells.Every large colection is at risk from fire more than crashes.

Any hoo, no lumberjack jokes neither sur.

Nermal.

Originally posted by DazDaMan
…was a brick wall! It was pushed out of harm’s way by ground crews, I believe.

Strong lads, them Canadians… 😀

I remember reading the “only” thing seperating the CWH Lancaster from the others that perished in the fire in ’93 was a brick wall! It was pushed out of harm’s way by ground crews, I believe.

🙂 ok,they just don’t seem to grab the headlines so we don’t hear about them [unless you look for them or live local to them].Also fire in hangars don’t get the “lets stop the old planes flying brigade” shouting,also on a lives lost basis,i imagine it is alot smaller.
Anyway lets keep restoring them to be up where they belong and hope we can also improve the fire retardent systems in hangars.
Just out of interest,how can you remove the aircraft in the museums such as the American one at Duxford when they’ve been hung up on ceilings ,what about Hendon etc.Seems to me to make sense tio keep access doors easily available and the wheels and tyres moveable so the planes can be pushed /towed out of the way if possible.

Trumper,

The point being made here is that when a museum fire occurs, as unfortunately they have a number of times in the last 20 – 25 years, the loss rate is often much greater than that experienced in flying accidents which generally involve only one machine. I think there were up to 40 aircraft completely destroyed in the San Diego disaster alone.

The Le Bourget fire was a major disaster; a large number of aircraft, including some sole survivors of type, were destroyed.

The Sept 2000 Airspray fire was at least 4 Invaders. The French museum fire was alot……including an F5 P-38 Lightning, A-26 Invader and more…..don’t have the exact figure in front of me. Hangar fires also destroyed a Sea Fury in Bakersfield in 1988 (and others) and also in Iowa the same year, a shop was restoring a two seat Sea Fury for Kermit Weeks and it went up, there may have been another in there also. The CWH fire also destroyed their TBM Avenger.

JH

http://www.keypublishing.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16347
Somewhere on this thread there is a mention of more aircraft being lost in fires than in crashes,i can’t see how.I personally have seen half a dozen plane crashes in this country alone ,all at displays but not all fatal ,Thank god.
I dread to think how many there have been in the USA alone this year,now with a wildcat added to to list.:(

There was a fire in a South American national museum in (I think) the early 1990’s. The other one can remember was San Diego in the 1978 when the aerospace museum was destroyed by arson.

OK, not a museum, but one of the Canadian fire fighting outfits (Air Spray or Conair?) lost a number of A-26 Invaders in a hangar fire about 3 or 4 years ago.

The North East Aviation Museum at Sunderland lost a Vickers Valetta to arson in 97.

more info on their website here

It was Le Bourget, I think. The only plane I can remember being lost in it was an early MkIX Spitfire, BS464. I may have got the location wrong, but not the plane!