This is a partial list of accidents and incidents involving the Boeing-designed B-17 Flying Fortress. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances. A few documented drone attrition cases are also included.
Aircraft were constructed by a three-firm consortium, Boeing, Vega and Douglas, known by the acronym BVD. Boeing built aircraft at their plant in Seattle, Washington, and their production models were appended -BO. Douglas Aircraft Company constructed aircraft at Long Beach, California, with a -DL suffix. The Vega Aircraft Corporation, a subsidiary of the Lockheed Aircraft Company, at Burbank, California, delivered aircraft with the -VE suffix.
1930s
30 October 1935 Prototype Boeing Model 299, NX13372, 'X13372', c/n 1963, the future B-17, crashes on take-off from Wright Field, Ohio, due to locked control surfaces, killing early military aviator and test pilot Maj. Ployer Peter Hill. Other engineers taken to hospital with injuries. Boeing test pilot and observer Les Tower died later. Ogden Air Depot, Utah, renamed Hill Field, (later Hill Air Force Base), on 1 December 1939. As the prototype was owned by Boeing, it had no USAAC serial.Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, , p. 237.Bowers, Peter M., "Fortress In The Sky", Sentry Books, Granada Hills, California, 1976, Library of Congress Card No. 76-17145, , p. 37 Some people cite the inadvertent take-off configuration which caused this accident (forgetting to unlock the control surfaces before takeoff) as the origin of today’s ubiquitous aviation “checklist”. 7 December 1936 First Y1B-17, 36-149, c/n 1973, first flown 2 December, makes rough landing at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, on third flight, when Army pilot Stanley Umstead touches down with locked brakes, airframe ends up on nose after short skid. Repaired, Flying Fortress departs for Wright Field on 11 January 1937.Bowers, Peter M., "The Forgotten Fortresses", Wings, Granada Hills, California, August 1974, Volume 4, Number 4, pp.22-23.
1940s 18 December 1940 Boeing Y1B-17 Flying Fortress, 36–157, c/n 1981, formerly of the 2nd Bomb Group, Langley Field, Virginia, transferred to the 93d Bomb Squadron, 19th Bomb Group, March Field, California, in October 1940, crashed E of San Jacinto, California, 3.5 miles NNW of Idyllwild, while en route to March Field. Pilot was John H. Turner.
6 February 1941 B-17B Flying Fortress, 38-216, c/n 2009,1938–1939 USAAS Serial Numbers. Joebaugher.com. Retrieved on 2010-08-05. crashes near Lovelock, Nevada, while en route to Wright Field, Ohio, killing all eight on board. Pilot Capt. Richard S. Freeman had shared the 1939 MacKay Trophy for the Boeing XB-15 flight from Langley Field, Virginia via Panama and Lima, Peru at the request of the American Red Cross, for delivering urgently needed vaccines and other medical supplies in areas of Chile devastated by an earthquake. General Order Number 10, dated 3 March 1943, announces that the advanced flying school being constructed near Seymour, Indiana, is to be named Freeman Field in honor of the Hoosier native.Freeman Field Title Page. Members.tripod.com. Retrieved on 2010-08-05.
22 June 1941 Royal Air Force Boeing Fortress I, AN522, of No. 90 Squadron, RAF Great Massingham, flown by F/O J. C. Hawley, breaks up in mid-air over Yorkshire during a training flight. Single survivor, a medical officer from RAE Farnborough, reports that the bomber entered a cumulo-nimbus cloud at , became heavily iced-up with hailstones entering through open gunports, after which control was lost, the port wing detached, and the fuselage broke in two at . Survivor, who was in the aft fuselage, was able to bail out at .Taylor, H. A., "Fiasco or Foretaste?", Air International, Bromley, Kent, UK, December 1974, Volume 7, Number 6, p. 280.
3 July 1941 Royal Air Force Boeing Fortress I, AN528, of No. 90 Squadron, RAF Polebrook, is destroyed when a troublesome engine catches fire during a late-night ground run.Taylor, H. A., "Fiasco or Foretaste?", Air International, Bromley, Kent, UK, December 1974, Volume 7, Number 6, pp.280-281.
2 November 1941 B-17C, 40-2047, of the 7th Bomb Group, en route from Salt Lake City, Utah, to McClellan Field, near Sacramento, California, enters a winter storm over the Sierras, stalls at 18,000 feet and spins in, coming down near Georgetown, California, ~30 miles NE of Placerville. Eight of nine crew successfully parachute down, pilot is KWF. Scattered wreckage is still where it fell. 3 April 1942 The 303rd Bomb Group, activated at Pendleton Field, Oregon, on 3 February 1942, suffers its first fatal aircraft accident when three flying officers and five enlisted crew are killed in the crash of a B-17E-BO, 41-9053, N of Strevell, Idaho during a training mission.O'Neill, Brian D., "303rd Bombardment Group", Osprey Publishing, Botley, Oxford, UK, 2003, , p. 9.
6 April 1942 B-17B, 38-214, of the 12th Bomb Squadron, 39th Bomb Group, Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona, suffers engine failure with one bursting into flame, the bomber crashing into the desert 22 miles SE of Tucson, killing five crew. "The dead and their addresses, as announced by Col. Lowell H. Smith, commander of Davis-Monthan air corps base, who said the tragedy was due to 'engine failure and fire in the air,' were: First Lieut. Donald W. Johnson, the pilot, of Dunning, Neb.; Sgt. Laurel D. Larsen, Minkcreek, Idaho; Pvt. Herbert W. Dunn, Mifflintown, Pa.; Pvt. Emerson L. Wallace, Philipsburg, Pa.; Pvt. Leo W. Thomas, Lemoore, California. Second Lieut. Sidney L. Fouts, of Santa Rosa, California, and Sgt. William F. Regan, of Dunmore, Pa., parachuted to safety, suffering only minor injuries and shock, the air base said."Associated Press, "Fiery Bomber Falls; 5 Dead", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Tuesday 7 April 1942, Volume 48, page 2.
27 June 1942 During Operation Bolero, the ferrying of combat aircraft from the U.S. to England by air, B-17E-BO, 41-9090, c/n 2562, ditches in a Greenland fjord near Narasak. Attempts have been made to locate the airframe, particularly by noted recovery expert Gary Larkins, but it has yet to be found. Provisionally assigned the FAA registration N3142U if it can be found and retrieved from 1,500 feet of water.Thompson, Scott A., "Final Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors", Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana, and Aero Vintage Books, Lincoln, California, Fourth Edition, June 2011, , page 228. 15 July 1942 During Operation Bolero, the ferrying of combat aircraft from the U.S. to England by air, a flight of two B-17E-BO Flying Fortresses, 41-9101, c/n 2573, "Big Stoop", and 41-9105, c/n 2577, "Do-Do", of the 97th Bomb Group and six P-38F Lightnings of the 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, on the leg between Bluie West 8 airfield and Reykjavík, Iceland, run out of fuel after being held up by bad weather, and all force-land on the Greenland icecap. All safely belly in except for the first P-38 which attempts a wheels-down landing, flipping over as nosewheel catches a crevasse, but pilot Lt. Brad McManus unhurt. All crews rescued on 19 July, but aircraft are abandoned in place. One P-38F-1-LO, 41-7630, c/n 222-5757, now known as "Glacier Girl", recovered in 1992 from under of accumulated snow and ice and rebuilt to flying status, registered N17630. One B-17 ("Big Stoop") also found, but it is too badly crushed for recovery.Hayes, David, "The Lost Squadron - A Fleet of Warplanes Locked in Ice For Fifty Years", Chartwell Books / Madison Press Books, Edison, New Jersey / Toronto, Ontario, , 1994, pp.40-47, 276. Although the USAAF had expected to lose 10 percent of the 920 planes that made the North Atlantic transit during Bolero, losses were only 5.2 percent, the majority being involved in this single incident.Bodie, Warren M. "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning". Hayesville, North Carolina.: Widewing Publications, 1991, , pp.99-103.
18 July 1942 "It was about 3:20 p.m. on a foggy Saturday afternoon during the World War II years when 16-year-old Leonard (Gig) Stephens heard through the cold mist the sound of an aircraft in trouble near his home by the Red Hill Country Club, not far from Route 62, and he ran outside to see a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on a descent to death. He will never forget, he says, the sight of an airman standing in an open hatchway as the plane started to clip the tops of pine trees into a wooded area, too low for a parachute to work. The engines were spitting flames. The plane cut a path 200 feet long and 40 feet wide..."Dabilis, Andy, unknown headline, The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts, 12 November 1995. B-17B, 39-8, of the 492d Bomb Squadron, flying from Gander Field, Newfoundland, piloted by Marion R. Klyce, comes down at North Reading, Massachusetts; scrapped at North Reading, 2 October 1942. "The Veterans’ Memorial on the town common commemorates the ten crew members who lost their lives in this crash. They were Orville Andrews, Robert Aulsbury, Stephen Bilocur, Archie Jester, Don Johnson, Marion Klyce, Sidney Koltun, William Perkins, James Phillips and Charles Torrence."
23 August 1942 B-17E-BO, 41-9091, of the 427th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb Group, operating out of Biggs Field, El Paso, Texas, suffers center fuselage failure in extremely bad weather 12 miles W of Las Cruces, New Mexico, only the radio operator and the engineering officer for the 427th Bomb Squadron, both in the radio room, survive by parachuting. Pilot was James E. Hudson. The 303rd BG was due to deploy overseas from Biggs on 24 August.O'Neill, Brian D., "303rd Bombardment Group", Osprey Publishing, Botley, Oxford, UK, 2003, , pp.11-12.
17 September 1942 A B-17E, 41-2650, of the 93d Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bombardment Group, based at Mareeba airfield in north Queensland, Australia, departed Seven Mile Aerodrome at Port Moresby to bomb Rabaul. Piloted by 2nd Lt. Claude N. Burckey, the crew completed the mission and set an initial return path for Port Moresby, which was clouded in, and then for Horn Island. The aircraft became lost and ran out of fuel over Cape York, Australia. The crew bailed out, and the aircraft crashed N of Weipa. 1st. Lt. William F. Meenagh (0-372623) was never found, the other eight crew members survived.
15 October 1942 Nine men are killed when B-17E-BO, 41-9161, of the 459th Bomb Squadron, 330th Bombardment Group, Alamogordo, New Mexico, piloted by John R. Pratt, crashes into Magdalena Peak, 6 miles SE of Magdalena, New Mexico. Forest Ranger Arthur Gibson reported the crash.Associated Press, "Mine Killed as Plane Hits Peak", The San Bernardino Daily Sub, San Bernardino, California, Saturday 17 October 1942, Volume 49, page 2.
21 October 1942 B-17D, 40-3089, of the 5th Bomb Group/11th Bomb Group, with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, America's top-scoring World War I ace (26 kills), aboard on a secret mission, is lost at sea in the central Pacific Ocean when the bomber goes off-course. After 24 days afloat in three rafts, he and surviving crew are rescued by the U.S. Navy after having been given up for lost, discovered by OS2U Kingfisher crew.
30 December 1942 B-17F-35-BO, 42-5123, of the 20th Bomb Squadron, 2d Bomb Group, Great Falls Army Air Base, Montana, piloted by Edward T. Layfield, crashes near Musselshell, Montana. Capt. John Lloyd, public relations officer at the Great Falls base, said that eleven aboard were killed.Associated Press, "11 Die in Army Crash", Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Thursday 31 December 1942, Volume CI, Number 313, page 4.