I may have a detail or two off as I am watching this special on PBS right now and came into it after it started.
Apparently it went down in Greenland in '42. Incredible men took parts and rebuilt it on site just like they would do in WWII. One greta man died in the process. They are just now about to take off. It is incredible to me. I see many of the men here at Videokarma to be in the same league as these great men.
I am very humbled to watch this special. Makes me think of all the men in wars, etc.
Now the plane just caught fire. It is destroying all they worked for. I am very sorry and quite shocked as I watch. I never expected failure.

I've seen that several times and it chokes me up every time :tears:

I remember watching that on its original air date. I was shocked at the end. Guess it was not meant to be.

I remember how sad I was seeing this as well. I remember that they left it to rot on the frozen lake, where it would all sink to the bottom in the thaw. As I understood it, the fuselage was burned pretty bad, but the wings and most importantly, those running engines were fine. I'm sure the aviation folks were upset over that one.

For a more triumphant version of the same events, check out the p-38 that they dug out of 200 feet of ice and brought back to running condition.

The title is "B29 Frozen in Time"the B29 was the Kee bird.I bought a copy
years ago from pbs.Worst ending ever.I googled the Kee bird a few years
ago and was led to a website started by a group of people that wanted to salvage what was left of the wreck,do not know if the website is still up.
Personally,I would have tried to salvage anything I could have,those new engines probably sat awhile before the ice melted and they sank to the bottom:scratch2:

I always felt like they were going for something overly dramatic for the camera crews. It's like one of us finding a prewar television rotting in someone's backyard, replacing just the filter caps and firing it up-just like the Kee Bird, it's likely that irreplaceable set will burn up pretty quickly too.

Back when I was a kid, I recall how my parents were into CB radio and my mom, in particular, was really into WWII planes after we saw "The Memphis Belle." We went to a couple air shows and at one show, I climbed up inside of a B-17 called "Sentimental Journey." I remember that I got behind the left side waist gun and starting aiming it towards some of the people walking around on the ground! At the next show, we got the see the movie version of the Memphis Belle. I believe they had landed and came rolling by as all the spectators watched. As she turned into her parking spot and turned her tail towards us, the gust from those engines blew over all this stuff at the souvenir stand! Pictures and hats and table cloths just went flying... it was quite a sight.

I did get to actually see a B-29 once at another air show. Her name was "FiFi" and in comparison to the B-17, she was considerably larger. I didn't get to climb up inside that one, but there was this other plane called "Liberator" which I believe was a B-24, and they had said that a president had ridden in it once, as I recall. I did climb up inside of it, and remember that it had one of those creepy dummies in uniform in there. Never cared much for those dummies!

But yeah, I do recall watching this documentary about the Kee Bird when it came out and we were all quite heartbroken and shocked at how it ended. It's horrible that one random piece of equipment breaks loose and destroys an irreplaceable aircraft. I understand that it could have been dismantled and transported in pieces and restored elsewhere, but who could blame these guys? I would have wanted to fly it out there, too!

When a restoration project goes horribly wrong, I guess we have to look back and remind ourselves that it could be much worse!

I may have a detail or two off as I am watching this special on PBS right now and came into it after it started.
Apparently it went down in Greenland in '42. Incredible men took parts and rebuilt it on site just like they would do in WWII. One greta man died in the process. They are just now about to take off. It is incredible to me. I see many of the men here at Videokarma to be in the same league as these great men.
I am very humbled to watch this special. Makes me think of all the men in wars, etc.
Now the plane just caught fire. It is destroying all they worked for. I am very sorry and quite shocked as I watch. I never expected failure.

I saw that too, several years ago, it really choked me up that all their hard work, plus the loss of their friend was all for naught. :(

We lost another B-17 this morning :(

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=170684&d=1307985750

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43380690

OH, that is very sad!

Out of seven passengers, seven walked away! It's hard to remain too sad looking at that knowing that only one aboard suffered any injury at all.