At least 7 killed in B-17 crash
The historic B-17 Flying Fortress that hundreds of county residents viewed, perused or flew in at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport in August during the Wings of Freedom celebration has crashed in Connecticut.
A state official said at least seven were killed.
The four-engine, propeller-driven plane had 10 passengers and three crew members aboard, authorities said.
The World War II-era plane that appeared at Wings of Freedom over the weekend of Aug. 17 crashed during a landing attempt around 10 a.m. Wednesday at Bradley International Airport in Hartford.
The Associated Press reported the plane crashed at the end of the runway.
According to KDKA in Pittsburgh, the same B-17 also crashed August 1987 at the Beaver County Airport when it overshot the runway while attempting to land in gusty winds and plunged down a hillside as thousands of spectators were waiting for the show's finale.Three people were injured in the Beaver County crash. The FAA said the plane's airspeed was excessive and cited pilot errors in the crash, according to KDKA.The Collings Foundation confirmed the plane that crashed Wednesday was the one that crashed at the Beaver County air show.The foundation says damage to the plane was repaired, and it went on to make more than 1,200 tour stops.Collings Foundation, which owns the plane and coordinates visits by several historic planes to events around the country, confirmed Wednesday the aircraft involved in the crash was the same one that visited the Wings of Freedom event in Penn Township.Stacey Daugharthy, office manager at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, said the B-17 was being shown at an event at Bradley International.
She feared the plane was giving public rides at the time of the crash. Many people who attended the Wings of Freedom events over the past few years have taken rides in the craft.“We are familiar with the pilots and crews and we are hoping and praying that they were able to get out,” Daugharthy said. “The smoke and flames from the crash look awful.”She said personnel at the local airport heard about the crash from County Commissioner Kim Geyer, who sits on the airport's board of directors.“They've become our friends,” Daugharthy said of the Collings Foundation flight crews.Jim Davis of Center Township, a World War II veteran of the Army Air Corps, was a propeller specialist on the B-17 Flying Fortress during his time as a technical sergeant from 1942 to 1944 in the European Theater of Operations.Davis was shocked and saddened to learn of the crash Wednesday.“All I can say is that's too bad,” Davis said. “I sure hope everybody is OK.”He said there could be many reasons why the hulking plane crashed.“I'm sure they had good engines,” Davis said. “It must have been something else that went wrong with it.”He was glad to hear initial reports that at least six people had survived and were taken to hospitals.“If they knew they were going to crash, they could all make preparations to try to protect themselves,” he said.Davis spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon watching coverage of the crash on television.Geyer said she and her father walked through the B-17 at Wings of Freedom. The duo shares a love of aviation as both had worked for the former US Airways in Pittsburgh.“I was very sad to hear that a vintage aircraft had crashed and that there were people on board (who) probably lost their lives,” Geyer said. “It saddens me to hear about it, being that my dad and I had just seen it and walked through it in August.”She asked her father which of the many vintage planes at the event he would like to ride and he replied, “The Flying Fortress.”“My thoughts and prayers are with the families and people who were on board the aircraft as well as the Collings Foundation,” Geyer said.
