[chris]

This is kinda cool, some old pictures of plane crashes. All of these pictures still show the bodies of the pilots near the crashed aircraft.

[Ugly]

Sweet thanks! nice pics!

[GODREKR]

Very nice collection. I love these old photos.

[stevus_maximus]

Those were great!

[brucefrommexico:)]

yeah

[William May]

This is an exceptional post! Early aviation crash pictures are pretty rare. The ones that are military photos were probably taken by the pilots that shot them down, as they tried to collect evidence to confirm their victory claims. Especially for the Germans, the rules were VERY strict about establishing kill claims. If the crash was so far over the allied front that it could not be seen by German ground forces, and there was no other confirmation, then it was disregarded. That was one of the primary reasons for the extravagent paint jobs on German a/c in WWI. They wanted to be sure that any ground troops could confirm the aircraft they saw was the one the pilot was actually flying when he claimed his kill.
(Richthofen's groups aircraft were NOT all painted red. They all had red in some motif, but the personal markings on each aircraft were different and distinctive.) (and their markings were pretty subdued compared to some other German fighter squadrons. There were many who were far more spectacularly marked than any of Richthofens unit's planes.)

[Nwhite]

omg, that poor horse!

[medicineman360]

I find it odd that all the pilots are a few feet outside their planes. I'm sure they were probably removed, by the crews that arrived, but I also wonder if some tried to jump out, at the last second, so close to the ground (but I'm guessing they'd end up farther away form the planes that way).