The WWII-era plane that crashed belonged to the Collings Foundation, which showcases historic aircraft
A World War II-era Boeing B-17 bomber aircraft crashed Wednesday morning while trying to land at Bradley International Airport, north of Hartford, Connecticut.
The vintage aircraft was a civilian-registered aircraft with the Collings Foundation, an educational nonprofit based in Stow, Massachusetts. Its mission is to “support ‘living history’ events and the preservation, exhibition and interaction of historical artifacts,” its website states.
With more than two dozen historic aircraft in its collection, spanning the early 1900s to the Vietnam War, the foundation claims to operate “one of the world’s greatest collections of historic aircraft,” according to its site.
It has completed a number of restoration projects and it has several underway, the site states.
The B-17 that crashed in Connecticut appears to be the only aircraft of its kind in Collings’ collection, the foundation’s site shows.
The foundation’s “Wings of Freedom Tour” is one of its primary focuses. The tour “showcases two fully restored bomber aircraft: a B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress,” according to the site.
In its 26th year, the tour has visited more than 3,000 US airports, the foundation states. Nearly 3.5 million visitors see its aircraft annually, it claims.
