LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least seven people are dead after a UPS cargo plane crashed Tuesday while taking off from the Louisville airport, leaving a trail of flames just miles from the city’s downtown.
The plane crashed at about 5:15 p.m. after its left wing caught fire. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft, made in 1991, was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said 11 others had “very significant” injuries.
The victims have not been identified publicly. Four of those killed were not aboard the plane, said Louisville Fire Department Chief Brian O’Neill.
Here’s what is known about the deadly crash.
A trail of destruction
Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane then lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding in a massive fireball. Residents who pulled out their phones upon hearing loud booms captured several balls of flames exploding into the sky in a row. Video also revealed portions of a building’s shredded roof next to the end of the runway.
O’Neill said the fire spanned “almost an entire city block.”
The Louisville airport shut down after the crash and wasn’t expected to resume operations until Wednesday morning.
UPS responds
Louisville is home to UPS’s largest package handling facility. The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
UPS acknowledged the crash in a brief statement and said the National Transportation Safety Board would handle the investigation. The company said it was halting package sorting operations Tuesday night at the Louisville facility and did not indicate when operations would resume.
There was no hazardous cargo on board, officials said.
Aviation expert reacts
Pablo Rojas, an aviation attorney, said based on the videos it appears the aircraft was struggling to gain altitude as a fire blazes on its left side around one of its engines. Given the large amount of fuel the aircraft was carrying, once the fire started in that area, it would’ve been only a matter of time before there was an explosion or the fire grew considerably.
“There’s very little to contain the flames and really the plane itself is almost acting like a bomb because of the amount of fuel,” he said.
It’s difficult to know whether the pilot noticed the flames from inside the aircraft, he said. Even if the pilot had realized there was a problem as they were about to take off, Rojas said stopping at that point may have been the more dangerous option.
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