Sadly, the "Liberty Belle", a WW2 era B17 built in 1944 crashed in a cornfield near the Aurora Airport (Illinois). Fortunately, all seven on board survived.

See: http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2211477

I really like classic aircraft.

A sad day indeed. I toured that plane a few years ago at a local airshow.

We toured one at an airshow in Colorado last year. I looked up the tail number of the one we saw and found it was a different one.

That's too bad but luckily all walked away.

Oh man, what a shame. I have seen 'Sentimental Journey' several times just east of here in Mesa, but there aren't many tailnumbers left of these. I'm glad everyone walked away and he was able to set it down in a field.

and a 'wet' field...if he had done that here in Texas ,the whole field would be ablaze now!

Wasn't the Liberty Bell the plane that was the 1st to complete a full cycle of bombing missions (along with it's crew) during WWII?

That was the Memphis Belle.

That's a real shame. Love those old WWII aircraft.

This story on the crash was on local Chicago news last night:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/06/16/b...7-youre-on-fire

What a great pilot.

Odd that it was too wet for fire trucks to get to them yet that plane landed in the field and it doesn't appear to be mired in mud? Maybe in the ditch by the road was wet?

Yep, the photos of the bomber shorty after landing on the Liberty Bell's own website really tell a story.

1) What a fantastic job the pilot did
2) The plane could have easily been saved.
3) The part about the fire trunks not wanting to cross the "muddy" field is a pile of crap. How can a heavy B-17 land on 3 wheels on a field too soft to support fire trucks?

Correct, thanks. I see that the statement of their chief pilot. That plane could have been saved.
http://www.libertyfoundation.org/index.html

Actually the photo with the Chief Pilot's story yesterday was more telling. It was shot from in front of the plane after it had landed looking back. It was completely intact with a small fire burning under the fuselage.

The Texan chase plane put all the effort in to coordinate with local authorities to get the fire trucks there ASAP...

Man, I wish they had had perhaps a brush fire truck (HD PU chassis) respond and they could have tried to get out to the plane.

Reminds me a bit of the tragic story several years back about a group refurbishing a B-29 that when down in some artic region. Several years of ferrying crews up during the short work season. Ferrying all 4 engines back to the states to have them rebuilt, ferrying up bulldozers in pieces to get a runway layed out, millions spent. They finally start it up, taxi the the end of the "runway" and then the APU catches fire and the thing burns to the ground.

I found the B-29 story:

Kee BIrd

I guess it was months of work, not years but... And one of the restorers got sick and died.