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Victims Of B-17 Crash At Bradley International Airport Identified

NTSB

Two western Massachusetts men were among the seven people killed in the crash Wednesday of a B-17 airplane at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut.

Authorities Thursday listed 56-year-old David Broderick of West Springfield as “deceased” and 48-year-old James Roberts of Ludlow as “presumed deceased.”

Both men were passengers.

The remaining victims were the pilot and co-pilot and three passengers.

Another passenger, 36-year-old Andy Barrett of South Hadley, Massachusetts was among the injured.

Three crew members and 10 passengers were aboard the vintage plane when five minutes into the flight officials saw it was not gaining altitude, according to Kevin Dillon of the Conn. Airport Authority.

"The NTSB is going to be conducting a very comprehensive investigation. That investigation is going to take a while," said Dillon. 

The plane lost control on touchdown, and burst into flames.

Full list of those aboard the flight:

  • Pilot: Ernest McCauley, 75, of Long Beach, CA. Presumed deceased.
  • Co-Pilot: Michael Foster, 71, of Jacksonville, FL. Presumed deceased.
  • Flight Engineer: Mitchell Melton, 34, of Dalehart, TX. Injured.
  • Passenger: Andy Barrett, 36, of South Hadley, MA. Injured.
  • Passenger: Linda Schmidt, 62, of Suffield, CT. Injured.
  • Passenger: Tom Schmidt, 62, of Suffield, CT. Injured.
  • Passenger: Joseph Huber, 48, of Tariffville, CT. Injured.
  • Passenger: James Traficante, 54, of Simsbury, CT. Injured.
  • Passenger: David Broderick, 56, of West Springfield, MA. Deceased.
  • Passenger: Gary Mazzone, 66, of Broad Brook, CT. Presumed deceased.
  • Passenger: James Roberts, 48, of Ludlow, MA. Presumed deceased.
  • Passenger: Robert Riddell, 59, of East Granby, CT. Presumed deceased.
  • Passenger: Robert Rubner, 64, of Tolland, CT. Presumed deceased.
  • Airport employee: Andrew Sullivan, 28, of Enfield, CT. Injured.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.
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