I knew the Collings Foundation’s Nine-O-Nine B17G crash back in 2019, which happened a few miles away from my home base in Connecticut at Bradley International Airport, would stir up a hornet’s nest of regulatory scrutiny. The day after the crash (that killed seven passengers and crew, and injured five), an FAA inspector told me these kinds of crashes—and the sloppy operation of some in the warbird community—were already on the NTSB and FAA’s radar, and the crash of this Flying Fortress would be the final straw.
“Passengers don’t realize the risks they are taking strapping into these old airplanes, and the NTSB knows it,” this wide-eyed FAA guy told me. The crash was huge news in our local area (and around the country), and it didn’t do much to build confidence in the perceived safety of old flying machines. That night, my neighbor wandered over for a cold one and couldn’t wait to ask why those old airplanes were allowed to fly passengers. Insert eye roll, although I wasn’t exactly an aviation ambassador with stories of rainbows and butterflies. Just a week prior on a bicycle ride, I showed him the cornfield where I put an old Cessna down after its engine tanked. After explaining my well-worn spiel about the accepted risks that tag along with riding in any aircraft, I got to thinking about the maintenance on these old birds, and why the Feds might be interested in a wide-reaching crackdown. Let’s be fair. Lots of vintage aircraft operators work to pretty high standards and they have the funds and the talent on hand to do so, but plenty of others don’t and it’s made the NTSB look closely at eight high-profile fatal wrecks, and cover identifying shortcomings in FAR 119.1(e). I smell a future wide-reaching Part 135 standard.