A World War II bomber crashed on Wednesday with 13 people on board at an airport in the state of Conecticut, in the northeastern United States, with a balance of at least seven dead, according to officials quoted by local media.

The Boeing B-17 was trying to land at 10:00 am (14:00 GMT) at Bradley International Airport, after having urgently called for a technical problem, less than 10 minutes after it took off, the airport director explained at a press conference Kevin Dillon

The plane, operated by the Collings Foundation, which normally transports people who want to fly in old aircraft, carried 10 passengers and three crew members on board, said James Rovella, chief of Connecticut public safety.

"I can confirm that there are dead, but I will not tell you the number," he had said during a press conference uploaded to the Internet by the authorities. "It's too early to talk about it, we have an accident, a fire and victims very difficult to identify, we don't want to make mistakes."

He added that the people on board had at least wounds, as well as one who was in an airport maintenance building that the plane rammed before hitting land and catching fire.

A little later, several local media indicated, citing officials, that the accident, which produced a vast column of black smoke visible several kilometers away, had caused at least seven deaths and a total of nine injured, including three people who were They were on land. A Connecticut police spokesman did not deny that figure when questioned. At the moment the causes of the accident were ignored.

In passages of a conversation between the pilot and the control tower of the airport - uploaded to the Internet by some means -, the pilot is heard asking for authorization to land emergency due to a problem in an engine.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal stressed that there are only 18 specimens able to fly from the B-17, devices called "flying fortresses" at their peak and 10,000 devices were manufactured.

"They are vintage airplanes that need to be properly maintained, and if it is confirmed that the cause of the accident was a maintenance error it will be a very strong alarm signal for all those flying these devices," he said.

A team of researchers from the National Transportation Security Agency (NSTB) called on the public to send them photos of all stages of the flight that could contribute to clearing the cause of the incident.

A team member said investigators will quickly determine what inspections these old devices are subjected to and whether safety recommendations should be issued urgently.

The Boeing B-17, a four-engine airplane, dates from the second half of the 1930s and was used as a bomber during World War II by United States air forces and their British allies.

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