Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Touring WWII B-17 crash kills seven
WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — A World War II-era B-17 bomber with 13 people aboard crashed and burned at the Hartford airport after encountering mechanical trouble on takeoff Wednesday, and a state official said at least seven were killed.
The four-engine, propellerdriven plane struggled to get into the air and slammed into a maintenance shed at Bradley International Airport as the pilots circled back for a landing, officials and witnesses said.
The craft held 10 passengers and three crew members, authorities said.
The state official who gave the death toll was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Connecticut Public Safety Commissioner James Rovella said hours after the crash that some of those on board were severely burned, and “the victims are very difficult to identify.”
At least six people were taken to the hospital, three of them critically injured, authorities said. One person on the ground was hurt.
The retired, civilian-registered plane was associated with the Collings Foundation, an educational group that took its Wings of Freedom vintage aircraft display to the airport this week, officials said.
The vintage bomber — also known as a Flying Fortress, one of the most celebrated allied planes of World War II — was used to take history buffs and aircraft enthusiasts on short flights, during which they could get up and walk around the loud and windy interior.
“Right now, my heart really goes out to the families who are waiting,” Gov. Ned Lamont said. “And we are going to give them the best information we can as soon as we can in an honest way.”
The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate the cause of the crash.
The plane was a few minutes into the flight when the pilots reported a problem and said it was not gaining altitude, officials said. The plane was out of control upon touching down and struck the shed just before 10 a.m.
The airport was closed afterward but reopened a single runway about 3½ hours later.
Flight records from FlightAware shows the plane had traveled about 8 miles and reached an altitude of 800 feet.
In recordings of audio transmissions, the pilot told an air traffic controller that he needed to return to the airport and land immediately. Asked why, he said: “No. 4 engine, we’d like to return and blow it out.”
Brian Hamer of Norton, Mass., said he was less than a mile away when he saw a B-17, “which you don’t normally see,” fly directly overhead, apparently trying to gain altitude.
One of the engines began to sputter, and smoke came out the back, Hamer said. The plane made a wide turn and headed back toward the airport, he said.
“Then we heard all the rumbling and the thunder, and all the smoke comes up, and we kind of figured it wasn’t good,” Hamer said.
Antonio Arreguin, who had parked at a construction site near the airport, said he did not see the plane but heard the explosion and could feel the heat from “this big ball of orange fire” about 250 yards away.
Angela Fletcher, who lives about a half-mile from the airport, said she saw the plane fly close to her house.
“It sounded like an 18-wheeler coming down the street and then it got louder. Like so loud, it was vibrating things in the house. I looked out the window, and I saw this giant old plane come over the house that was very close, like oddly close to the house,” she said.
“And then you heard like a pop pop. Almost like it was [the] engine. The engine was failing. And then it just continued over. So I didn’t think too much of it. And then I heard all the sirens but it was dangerously close,” Fletcher said.
The same plane crashed in 1987 at an air show near Pittsburgh, injuring several people, the Collings Foundation said. Hit by a severe crosswind as it touched down, the bomber overshot a runway and plunged down a hill. It was later repaired.
The crash reduces to nine the number of B-17s actively flying, said Rob Bardua, spokesman for the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio.
Boeing-built B-17 Flying Fortresses — 74 feet long, with a wingspan of 104 feet — were used in daylight bombing raids against Germany during the war. The missions were extremely risky, with high casualty rates, but helped break the Nazis’ industrial war machine.
The B-17 that went down was built in 1945, too late to see combat in the war, according to the Collings Foundation.
It served in a rescue squadron and a military air transport service before being subjected to the effects of three nuclear explosions during testing, the foundation said. It was later sold as scrap and eventually was restored. The foundation bought it in 1986.
Information for this article was contributed by Chris Ehrmann, Dave Collins, Michael Melia and Susan Haigh of The Associated Press; and by Christine Dempsey, Steven Goode, Nicholas Rondinone, Emily Brindley, Kassi Jackson, Dave Altimari, David Owens, Russell Blair and Rebecca Lurye of The Hartford Courant.