In the early 1940s, as World War II reshaped the world, aviation was advancing at a breathtaking pace. Aircraft like the B-17 bomber  were engineering marvels of their time — powerful, complex, and built to survive hostile skies. Yet, something unsettling began to surface. Planes were being lost not in combat, but on the ground  — during takeoff, aborted takeoff, or landing. Different airfields. Different crews. The same tragic outcome. These incidents were harder to explain