Two pilots who were killed in a Dallas air show last year in November 2022 were honored on Wednesday.
Terry Barker and Leonard Root were honored Wednesday with a brick ceremony that paid tribute to the pair at the C.R. Smith Museum at DFW Airport. They were members of the Allied Pilots Association, and both had worked and retired from American Airlines.
As reported by The Dallas Express, two historic planes collided during the airshow at Dallas Executive Airport, causing the deaths of all six men.
Speaking to Fox 4 Dallas, Root’s widow, Angela Root, said she is grateful her husband is being honored.
“It’s sad. But it’s an honor to know that he was thought of so greatly in this community and the flying industry,” said Root.
Barker and Root were flying in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra that were part of the Commemorative Air Force’s Wings Over Dallas World War II Airshow.
The other four victims who died in the crash were identified as Craig Hutain, Kevin “K5” Michels, Dan Ragan, and Curt Rowe.
4,000 to 6,000 spectators at the show were estimated to have witnessed the devastating crash. Video of the crash circulated on social media.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continue to investigate the crash and have said it could take up to 18 months to complete a report.
The NTSB has released a preliminary report, however, which detailed some of the factors that contributed to the tragedy, as reported by The Dallas Express.
More recently, a third-party review examined the joint response to the accident, outlining several areas that needed improvement for future emergencies, The Dallas Express covered.
For example, the Dallas Executive Airport manager and other leaders had not taken advanced Incident Command System (ICS) classes, which would have helped improve the establishment of staging areas, command post control, and facilitating responder transportation.
Additionally, the report suggested that the airport did not have sufficient “staff to support prolonged incident response and recovery operations over multiple operational periods.”
