LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A large UPS cargo plane with three people aboard crashed and exploded Tuesday while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, igniting a massive fire that left a thick plume of black smoke over the area.
The plane crashed about 5:15 p.m. as it was departing for Honolulu from Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“We know that there are injuries. We don’t know yet about fatalities, but we’re asking all Kentuckians to pray for those that have been impacted,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told The Associated Press.
Mayor Craig Greenberg told WLKY-TV there could be about 280,000 gallons (1,059 kiloliters) of fuel on the plane, an “extreme reason for concern in so many different ways.”
UPS’s largest package handling facility is in Louisville. The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
A shelter-in-place order was extended to all areas north of the airport to the Ohio River. The Louisville airport is only a 10-minute drive from the city’s downtown, which sits on the river bordering the Indiana state line. There are residential areas, a water park and museums in the area.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airplane owned by UPS was manufactured in 1991.
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