As aviation officials continue to investigate the cause of a private plane that left seven dead at Hanscom Field Saturday night, the town of Bedford is recovering.
Bedford is still a fairly quiet town, but there’s no shortage of conversation about the crash — from the grocery store to the neighborhood where it happened.
“We had just put our daughter to bed and we were sitting on the couch and we just heard an incredibly loud boom," said Larry David, who lives on Genetti Street, beside Hanscom Field. "The house shook, it definitely did shake. Not that long a duration, maybe two or three seconds.”
David's wife, Paula, says she could still smell the smoke the next day.
“It was all just thick, black smoke for as far as you could see,” she said.
Larry David said he saw smoke and was baffled by the explosion. Police and fire officials quickly arrived in the neighborhood and told residents they were safe. But David wonders what this might mean for the ongoing efforts to expand civilian airport services at the Air Force base.
“I’m sure this is going to weigh on people’s minds," he said. "I personally haven’t decided for myself whether it’s good or bad. I’ve heard both sides of the argument. I can see merits for expanding or not expanding.”
Earlier this year, a private jet facility at Hanscom Civil Airport filed plans to expand into wetlands buffer zones and in the process expand the airport’s footprint. The plans have met controversy from local residents.
“There’s been a lot of disputes over the past decade about airport expansion, what kind of place," Paula David said. "It’s usually not that loud, we usually don’t hear that much. We’ll hear some planes coming and going it’s really become ambient noise at this point.”
