A beloved pet cat is believed to be among the casualties after a burning UPS plane plummeted into a petroleum plant and exploded moments after departing a Kentucky airport late Tuesday afternoon.
Bob, the “shop cat” at GLF Environmental, hasn’t been seen since UPS Flight 2976 slammed into the fuel recycling plant just outside Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport.
“He’s just our shop cat. I’m assuming he didn’t make it, but it’s okay. There were lives lost so I’m not going to worry about my cat,” said Shelby Shircliff, 34, a dispatcher at GFL Environmental in Louisville.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said that GFL Environmental, also known as Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, took a direct hit in the disastrous crash that presumably killed nine people, including the three UPS crew members on the plane.
Louisville, which local councilwoman Betsy Ruhe described as a “UPS town,” is still trying to pick up the pieces as officials try to locate more than a dozen missing Kentuckians.
Shircliff told The Post that GFL Environmental was largely “destroyed,” but said that the eight employees on site had clocked out “shortly” before the crash.
Bob, the shop’s gray and black cat, is presumed dead.
“He’s been our shop cat for seven or eight years. He was a good cat,” Shircliff said.
“We found him when he was a little kitten. He has a bob tail so we named him Bob.”
Shircliff is also grappling with the loss of her family’s business, which was owned and operated by her father before he sold it to GFL Environmental.
“It’s a little more sentimental but obviously that is the least of my worries. There’s life lost. It’s very tragic and it’s sad. It’s a sad day for a lot of people around here,” she added.
Shircliff shared harrowing footage of the fiery crash captured by a nearby dash camera that showed the UPS plane tilting on its side while one wing dragged across the ground. She wrote that the aircraft “immediately exploded,” sparking a jaw-dropping inferno that took hours to extinguish.
UPS Flight 2976 was bound for Hawaii and spiraled to the ground mere minutes after takeoff — while carrying approximately 50,000 gallons of jet fuel.
UPS employs more than 20,000 people in Louisville, where its international shipping operation is based.
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