WWII-Era Aircraft Crashes in Connecticut, Injuries Reported

Smoke fills the sky after a World War II-era bomber plane crashed outside Bradley International Airport north of Hartford, Conn. A spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont confirmed the crash of the B-17 plane on Oct. 2, 2019. Antonio Arreguin via AP

A vintage World War II-era plane crashed at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut on Oct. 2, causing a major fire, according to the airport.

The airport wrote on Twitter that it is closed.

“We can confirm that there was an accident involving a Collings Foundation World War II aircraft [Wednesday] morning at Bradley Airport,” it said on Twitter. “We have an active fire and rescue operation underway. The airport is closed. We will issue further updates as information becomes available.”

The Hartford Courant newspaper reported that the plane involved in the crash was a B-17.

Multiple injuries were confirmed, reported the Courant, but it is not clear the extent of them. It’s unclear if there were any deaths.

The National Guard also said that it was a historic aircraft, WSFB reported.

A number of fire department officials were called to the scene. The smoke could be seen for miles, according to social media posts.

Five vintage World War II-era planes were on display at the airport as part of a Wings of Freedom Tour, the station reported.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

Police tape is shown in a stock photo Graeme Roy/The Canadian Press

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.