The good news is, no one was seriously injured. The bad news is, the World War II vintage Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress replica of the original B-17 “Liberty Belle” that flew combat missions in World War II is a complete write-off.
We had the opportunity to see the Liberty Belle on a visit to the Cobb County Airport – McCollum Field back in July 2006. Unfortunately, it was a chance encounter that we hadn’t planned on and we didn’t have enough time to sign-on for a flight.
As you can see from the photos below taken earlier today, she’ll never fly again.
Here is a collection of links to recent stories about the accident, comments from the owner, as well as some historical information on the Belle.
- The “Facts” provided by Ray Fowler, the Liberty Foundation Chief Pilot who has taken the time to correct much of the mis-information reported by the media. (Good to see the Foundation’s website is back up)
- Local news story from Chicago on the forced landing and demise of the Belle
- Additional time-sequenced photos of the post-landing fire
- Comments from the owner Don Brooks can be found here
- Who is Don Brooks?A pretty amazing person
- Wikipedia Entry With Some History
- More history on the two donor aircraft that were used to create the Liberty Belle
A short YouTube Video by AvWeb with a very good report on the incident.
A short video of the Belle in all of her glory.
Just breaks my heart…
The TandemGeek's Blog 
A sad day for vintage airplane aficionados. Friends of mine were the last paying passengers before it went down.
I think you’re confusing The Liberty Belle with The Memphis Belle. The Memphis Belle was the first B-17 the survive 25 combat missions and came home to do a war bond drive, had two movies made about her (one fairly factual, the other much more “Hollywood”) and still exists. The Liberty Belle was not a replica of anything. She was also a combat veteran with over sixty missions to her credit. After the war she served for twenty years as an engine test bed for Pratt And Whitney. In 1979 she was totalled in a tornado when another aircraft was thrown into her. The wreck was stored for some time before being restored to airworthy condition. It is sad she came to such an end, but mircaulous that she made it that far at all.
Everything you would want to know about The Liberty Belle can be found here-
http://www.libertyfoundation.org/history-libertybelle.html
No confusion…
The man who created The Liberty Foundation and who restored the B-17G that was lost on Monday after the emergency landing in a Soybean field was Don Brooks of Douglas, Georgia.
Don Brooks’ father was a tail gunner on the actual B-17 nicknamed Liberty Belle (SN 42-97859) that flew 64 combat missions in WWII. However, the original Liberty Belle made an emergency landing at a US base in Belgium after a mission and was salvaged in place 4 days later on Feb 18, 1945.
The B-17G that was restored by Don Brooks & the Liberty Foundation to honor his dad and other WWII aviators (SN 44-85734) was produced at the end of the war and never saw combat. It was restored using the tail section from another B-17G that was damaged back on April 16, 1980 at Bear Pen, North Carolina. (SN 44-85813).
You can read Don Brook’s account of his aircraft’s history in one of the articles that I provided a link to:
http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/5943161-418/airplanes-owner-weve-lost-a-national-treasure.html
More here:
http://airports.pilotage.com/features/LibertyBell_10/Liberty%20Belle4.htm
And here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Belle_(B-17)
Not sure why the History on the foundation’s website wasn’t a little more clear about the original (SN 42-97859) being “salvaged” in Belgium. More info here:
http://forum.armyairforces.com/m163984-print.aspx
http://forum.armyairforces.com/tm.aspx?m=112554
The way they they introduce “their” B-17G (SN 44-85734 / 44-85813) in the next paragraph could easily lead readers to assume it was the same B-17, but it was not.