A second world war B-17 bomber carrying 13 people crashed and burned at the Hartford airport in an aborted takeoff on Wednesday. A state official said at least five people were killed.

The four-engine, propeller-driven plane struggled to get into the air and slammed into a maintenance shed at Bradley international airport as the pilots circled back for a landing, officials and witnesses said.

It was carrying 10 passengers and three crew members, authorities said. The state official who gave the death toll was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Connecticut public safety commissioner, James Rovella, said hours after the crash some of those onboard suffered severe burns and “the victims are very difficult to identify”.

The retired, civilian-registered plane was associated with the Collings Foundation, an educational group that brought its Wings of Freedom vintage aircraft display to the airport this week, officials said.

“Right now my heart really goes out to the families who are waiting,” the governor, Ned Lamont, said. “And we are going to give them the best information we can as soon as we can in an honest way.”

State police stand outside the area of the wreckage at Bradley international airport. Photograph: Jessica Hill/AP

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate the cause of the crash.

The plane was a few minutes into the flight when pilots reported a problem and said it was not gaining altitude, officials said. It lost control upon touching down and struck the shed just before 10am.

One person on the ground was injured, officials said. New England’s second-busiest airport was closed after the crash but reopened a single runway about three hours later.

Flight records from FlightAware show the plane went down about five minutes after it took off. The data shows it had traveled about eight miles and reached an altitude of 800ft.

Brian Hamer, of Norton, Massachusetts, said he was less than a mile away when he saw a B-17 fly directly overhead, apparently trying to gain altitude but not succeeding. One of the engines began to sputter, and smoke came out the back, Hamer said. The plane made a wide turn and headed back toward the airport, he said.

“Then we heard all the rumbling and the thunder, and all the smoke comes up and we kind of figured it wasn’t good,” Hamer said.

Antonio Arreguin said he had parked at a construction site near the airport for breakfast when he heard an explosion. He said he did not see the plane but could feel the heat from the flames, about 250 yards away.

“I see this big ball of orange fire, and I knew something happened,” he said.



