Two Texas pilots were injured, one critically, when two World War II-era warplanes collided on a runway at the world's largest sport aviation exposition.
Federal aviation officials were expected today at the 47th annual AirVenture Oshkosh to investigate Thursday's collision that sent Laird Doctor, 56, of Frisco, Texas, to a hospital with severe burns.
Doctor, a former Navy pilot, was listed in critical condition early today at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in suburban Milwaukee, a nursing supervisor said.
Doctor was piloting the propeller-driven Corsair when it clipped the wing of an aircraft on the ground during take off, said Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, host of the convention.
The Corsair tilted, hitting the ground and cartwheeling before it burst into flames.
Part of the wing of the other plane, a Bearcat, was sheared off.
``Boy, the wing and debris started cart-wheeling. When they hit, everything just exploded,'' said Ted Maple of Ames, Neb.
The accident happened on a runway at Wittman Regional Airport about 3 p.m., said Tony Molinaro, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Bearcat pilot, Howard Edwards Pardue, of Breckinridge, Texas, climbed out of the airplane and walked away from the accident, EAA spokesmen John Burton said in a statement. Pardue was treated for minor injuries at the scene.
``When I saw it I couldn't understand why the Bearcat was going so slow, it didn't make sense,'' said Joe Neff, a pilot from Indianapolis.
The Corsair is a popular aircraft among World War II pilots, said John Kraman, sales manager for Courtesy Aircraft Sales, a warbird dealer in Rockford, Ill.
Doctor is director of the Cavanaugh Flight Museum, an aviation museum in Addison, Texas, that showcases military aircraft, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported.
He has four flight certificates which allow for airline transport, helicopter and glider flight, Federal Aviation Administration records said. Doctor also is rated to pilot both single and multi-engine airplanes, the newspaper said.
The accident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, Burton said.
During the fly-in, the airport becomes the busiest in the world, accommodating between 10,000 and 12,000 airplanes, from antiques and homebuilts to jets.
