I don't know what this means for seeing warbirds operate, but the whole thing sucks. The first video talks about the flight itself, then pt 2 gets into the engines and maintenance.
The Collings foundation is finished, so I hope someone else picks up their planes. It also sounds like the insurance for these operations has skyrocketed.
The loss of life was very preventable, even the FAA is a contributor

Pt 1

Pt 2

Seems like the pilot thought engine 4 was the big problem and decided himself to shut it down, then did the same for engine 3. It's thought that if he would have left 4 running and only shut down or feathered engine 3 he may have had a better chance of landing the plane...................................yeah hindsight is always 20 20 and I think he did the best he could, sort of. Can't say that for the one in charge of maintenance and the condition of those magnetos especially in engine #3 in both the front and rear and why if you had to "dry them with compressed nitrogen to start the engines" would you not have replaced them with new or rebuilt ones long before!!! The Collins Foundation seems to have been run like a bad carnival and didn't really care if one of their main ride attractions was properly maintained, Losers Sorry for the loss of life and condolences to their families and friends, needless in hindsight.

WOW lots of maintenance and crew error here. As a licensed aircraft engine and airframe mechanic with many years working on radio engines including the R1900 the ignition issues were the route cause for shutting down number four engine. The condition of the P leads was inexcusable. I would have grounded the aircraft until they were probably repaired. The small points gap on number 3 differently attributed to low power on number three. Also as a flight engineer with over 4000 hours in four engine aircraft, C-130 the pilot broke a cardinal rule of basic a multi engine aviation, you never turn into a dead engine. He had number 4 shut down and number 3 making reduced power, both on the right wing and he still entered a right hand pattern. In my mind and experience not very smart. He didn’t declare an emergency which would have allowed him to request a left hand pattern which would have kept him from turning in to the dead engine.
Lost a friend many years ago flying a twin engine aircraft when he lost an engine on takeoff and turned in to the dead engine when he attempted to return to the runway. The plain rolled over into the dead engine and crashed inverted.

Thanks for posting.

The local B17 here was out flying all day yesterday. They flew over my house several times during the day. I was coming back from the local Saturday car gathering at about 6pm and he flew over making his final to land. I would imagine they were giving a lot of Christmas present rides yesterday.

Many years back I worked on 1820's. Loved those things and they served us very well. I believe the B17's used the same Hamilton Standard variable speed prop that we did. At night sometimes I'd just make up an excuse to go out on the flight line and fire one or two up just hear them run.

Ironically, about 24 years ago, my brother and I got Dad (who'd been a flight engineer on B17's and B29's) up for a ride in the Collings B17. We sat on the floor in the back like they did with most all passengers. I had a video camera along to film the experience.

While taxiing out, I thought I noticed a prop acting up. Looked over at Dad and said " Do you feel a prop oscillating? He immediately came back with "I was going to ask you the same thing". About then they pulled everything back to idle and pulled off the taxi way. They shut off the engines. Sure enough they pulled a work stand over to an inboard engine and were doing something on the prop. I couldn't see much from where we were. Then someone hammered (on the nose cone I think) a bit, they put everything away and re-started the engines. We just looked at each other and shrugged.

The flight was great. I filmed Dad's face as the plane lifted off and the expression he had was beyond words. It still causes me to tear up just remembering. Filmed Dad sitting in his flight engineer seat and got to walk all around the plane during the flight. Great memory.

RIP Dad.

I went on Aluminum Overcast over 25 years ago, and it seemed to be running like a top.
A few years ago, I took a ride on one of EAA’s Ford Trimotors and I cringed a few times during takeoff looking out the window at the engine and hearing the antique motor wheeze and backfire a few times. As far as I can tell, EAA has deep pockets and maintains their planes well though. Collins really seemed to have been very complacent in their maintenance of their B17 on the other hand, what a tragedy and and inexcusable that they had got lax and that the FAA had dropped the ball in the oversight of the operation.

Having taken some flight courses in high school, and knowing some pilots and aircraft owners, I have been somewhat familiar with the rigorous maintenance that is required for airplanes. Thus, when I flew on the 909, I assumed that it was maintained in tip-top shape.
The crash investigation report says that the foundations point of contact at the FAA died, and was not replaced. The foundations emails regarding their regulatory compliance went unanswered, so eventually they quit sending them and continued operations with no FAA oversight.

I would think that someone at the Collings foundation would know this would catch up with them. Perhaps the deceased pilot/head of maintenance was the only one who knew? I think it would be easy for an organization like this to rely too much on the judgement and performance of one or 2 highly experienced volunteers. But if they get lax, where is the oversight? Obviously not the FAA.
This highlights the folly of relying on government bureaucracies to watch over our safety. Why can't someone at the IRS croak so I can quit paying taxes?

I love old machinery. Warbirds, anything steam powered, treadle driven sewing machines, you name it. This crash report caught my attention, and then I learned about the Bluebonnet Belle DC-3 crash from 2018, caused by inexperience with flying a twin engined tail dragger carrying max weight. Then October this year a B-25 got severely damaged in a forced landing apparently caused by a fuel delivery problem.
The whole industry needs to step back and redo everything maintenance, ops and training, or frankly we won't get to see this stuff fly at all. This involves the CAF and whoever operates the B-25 "Old Glory"

Sorry for the gloom. I guess I need to just deal with the new techy stuff.

DC-3 Final report
B-25 preliminary NTSB

the Prescott Foundation is the owner of Old Glory. The CAF went thru some ruff times with several crashes. several killed in them, but IIRC it they were traced to pilot error, and I do believe the pilot of their B-26 that crashed had a heart attack. While this will be ruff on the others that fly Warbirds, I don't see Collings flying their planes anymore, certainly not with passengers anymore, and that's what supported their Freedom Tour.

I don't see why Collings shouldn't be allowed to fly if they and the FAA both clean up their acts.

People forget how far aviation safety has come since these old warbirds were new.

Back in the day, mishaps and crashes during operational and training missions were commonplace for both mechanical reasons and human error. Because it was wartime, a lot of them were just seen as a price we had to pay to win the war. These things weren't built for sightseeing trips.

Now add on 75 years--you have a lot of wear and tear, most parts have to be made from scratch, and Uncle Sam isn't funding the flights any more. Honestly I'm surprised there aren't even more mishaps.

Looking at that video and being a commercial rated single engine land instrument pilot with 1100+ hrs.(not very many though) I see many errors made in that wreck.
If I had been in his position I would have declared a immediate emergency on the first engine failure and made a immediate U turn and landed that classic warbird on the same runway that it took off from. I would have not tried to nurse it back all the way around the airport to land it. In other words I would have made a rapid U turn and landed back on the same runway I just departed from, no need to try and maintain altitude long enough to get it back to land where it started it's take off roll from .
My background is drag racing so when I started ground school in my mid 40s I was shocked to hear the ground school instructor say that 95% of general aviation accident are caused by pilot error on the first night of ground school , not aircraft part failures or other uncontrollable things that the pilot couldn't take care. I soon learned he was correct
My first example of pilot error was when I was sitting in the back seat of a friends airplane while another friend flew it, he had not flown a retractable gear airplane which this plane had and I was being flown to another airport so I could get my airplane back that had been there for several days having work done on it. This airplane, a 1971 Piper Arrow 200, it had 200 HP with retractable gear and a variable speed prop and it was consider at that time to be a "high performance aircraft" and my friend needed a instructor in the airplane to be covered by the owners insurance, another friend of ours owned that airplane. What had happened before the first takeoff was the pitot covers weren't removed in the before flight inspection by him and me, I didn't see them as that plane had them on the fuselage above the left wing, most small airplanes have them on the bottom of the wings. The pitot provides the signal for the airspeed indicator so once he started the take off roll he had no airspeed indicator but he managed to get it flying and took it around the pattern and landed it safely and remove them both. The problem occurred on the second take off where he was focus on the airspeed indicator and ended up barely getting it airborne due to over handling it and scrubbing off the airspeed before getting a positive rate of climb. The instructor took control and we managed to survive that potential crash do to multiple pilot error on both take offs.
Pilots are taught three basic rules,#1 Aviate, fly the airplane first, #2 navigate the airplane safely and then #3 communicate with the ground and other airplanes flying in that area to let them know what your doing and going to do.
I was lucky enough to get a lot of advice by many high time commercial pilots early in my flying career that really help me in my decision making while flying, I'm really lucky and glad I didn't end up getting hurt or hurting some one else