Who were the victims of the Dallas airshow plane crash?
Six people died after a tragic collision mid-air collision during the Dallas air show at Dallas Executive Airport on November 12th and new information has been released about the victims' identities.
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
All six men were from the Commemorative Air Force, a non-profit organization that flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and Bell P-63 King Cobra during the airshow.
Terry Barker, a 67-year-old father, and husband, had had a long career flying helicopters with the US Army and was a 37-year veteran pilot instructor for American Airlines.
Photo by: Facebook @dennis.r.phillips
Baker was a natural airman and spent much of his spare time rebuilding a Beechcraft AT-6 aerobatic biplane and attending local in his home city of Keller, 32 miles from Dallas.
Photo by: Facebook @dennis.r.phillips
"Terry Barker was beloved by many," said Keller Mayor Amin Mizani, "Even after retiring from serving on the city council and flying for American Airlines, his love for the community was unmistakable.”
Photo by: Facebook @dennis.r.phillips
Leonard Root also spent nearly four decades working with American Airlines working with the company’s flight management system program controller and flight director.
Photo by: Facebook @rebekah.root.52
Root was 66 years old and was spending much of his time working for the Commemorative Air Force.
Photo by: Facebook @rebekah.root.52
Curtis Rowe was one of the crew members aboard the B-17 when the collision occurred and served as the crew mechanic.
Photo by: Facebook @MajorMcHatton
The 64-year-old Rowe served in Ohio’s wing of the Civil Air Patrol and Colonel Peter Bowden, commander of the wing, said Rowe had "touched the lives of thousands of his fellow Civil Air Patrol members” in a statement to a local television station.
Photo by: Facebook @MajorMcHatton
Craig Hutain was the pilot flying the single-seat P-63 and had flow since the age of 17. A native of Montgomery, Texas, Hutian was 63 at the time of the accident and left behind a wife of 20 years as well as two adult children.
Photo by: Facebook @craig.hutain
Dan Regan was aboard the former colonel in the US Navy and once served abroad on a similar B-17 as a radio operator in patrol missions during the Korean War.
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
"When I first got back on the plane,” Regan told Longview-News in an interview a year prior to the incident,” I was a kid in the candy store.”
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
Kevin Michaels, also known as “K5”, was a 42-year-old who worked many roles for the Commemorative Air Force and was one of the company’s main historians and media representatives.
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
Michaels spent much of his adult life educating the public about historic aircraft and was one of the five crew members aboard the B-17 when the incident occurred.
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
An investigation into the cause of the crash is currently underway and is expected to exactly what happened to cause the accident.
Photo by: Facebook @CommemorativeAF
The Federal Aviation Administration originally launched the investigation after the incident but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) quickly took over once its team of technical experts reached the scene.
Michael Graham, a member of the NTSB stated during a news conference that one “of the things we would probably most likely be trying to determine is why those aircraft were co-altitude in the same air space at the same time.”