A UPS cargo plane crashed on Tuesday after taking off from an airport in Louisville, Ky., killing at least nine people and sending a cloud of thick smoke rising over one of the largest air cargo hubs in the United States.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said that the plane, which was carrying three crew members, hit two businesses near the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport and that the death toll could rise.
On Wednesday morning, Mayor Craig Greenberg of Louisville said that emergency responders had located nine people who died in the crash. Earlier, he had said that four of the people who died were on the ground when the plane crashed, and that 11 others were injured.
The plane exploded into a fireball and left a fiery trail through an industrial area near the airport. Officials issued a shelter-in-place order for people living nearby. Hundreds of firefighters had nearly contained the blaze by late Tuesday, Brian O’Neill, Louisville’s fire chief, said at a news conference.
The crash disrupted operations at UPS’s air cargo headquarters, a central part of its global operations that hosts more than 300 flights and processes about two million packages a day, according to the company.
Mr. Greenberg said that the airport had reopened a runway on Wednesday morning, though the airport said that cancellations and delays were likely. UPS said in a statement that its Louisville hub was halting package sorting operations on Tuesday night.
UPS Flight 2976, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 bound for Honolulu, took off at 5:14 p.m. and climbed to 175 feet before swiftly descending, the governor said. It was carrying 38,000 gallons of jet fuel, his office said.
McDonnell Douglas was bought by Boeing in the 1990s. Boeing said in a statement that it had offered technical assistance to the National Transportation Safety Board, which will investigate the crash. The N.T.S.B. said its team would arrive in Kentucky on Wednesday.
There have been at least three crashes, two of them deadly, involving UPS planes since 2006. The most recent was in 2013, when a plane leaving Louisville crashed short of the runway in Birmingham, Ala., killing its two pilots.
Footage of the crash broadcast on local television showed black smoke billowing skyward near the airport. In one video, the plane appeared to be on fire as it traveled down the runway. The plane struggled to climb, then crashed, creating an enormous fireball.
Bethany Adams said she was driving to her Pilates class after work when she noticed an ominous cloud in the sky.
“It looked like it could spout several tornadoes,” Ms. Adams said.
Two businesses were directly hit by the plane: a waste company and an auto parts store. Mr. Beshear said that two employees at the auto parts store were unaccounted for.
Joey Garber was in his office at the store, Grade A Auto Parts, on Tuesday afternoon when the power went out and the building shook.
“Then we heard a bunch of explosions,” said Mr. Garber, the store’s chief operating officer. He ran outside and saw flames and plumes of black smoke engulfing the site of the company’s scrap metal department, which contains several buildings and is where the plane hit.
“A bunch of people were running out that were inside those buildings,” he said.
Mr. Garber said an employee who safely escaped one of the buildings hit by the crash told him the power went out and someone suddenly screamed, “Everyone run, it’s coming right at us!”
Employees and customers in one of the buildings had to escape through a back window, Mr. Garber said. It was unclear how many customers were on-site at the time of the crash. The business typically sees as many as 200 to 250 customers a day, said Sean Garber, the company’s chief executive and Joey Garber’s father.
Shelby Shircliff, who works at the waste company that was hit, said no one was at the site at the time of the crash, though the business did have a pet cat that was most likely there. The company, which was previously called Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, is now run by GFL Environmental.
Donald Anderson, of Louisville, rode a bicycle to a reunification center seeking information about his girlfriend. The couple had been collecting scrap metal earlier on Tuesday, and his girlfriend said she could run to the Louisville petroleum recycling center to cash in some of the scrap. That was around 4:30 p.m. Mr. Anderson has not heard from her since.
“I’m very worried,” Mr. Anderson said. It is “very unusual not to hear from her.”
Mr. Beshear expressed relief that a nearby Ford Motor plant employing about 3,000 people was not hit by the plane. “With the number of employees working there, it’s a blessing,” Mr. Beshear said.
Mr. Beshear said no hazardous materials were ignited by the crash.
Jefferson County Public Schools, the main school district in Louisville, said that it was canceling classes, extracurricular activities and athletics for Wednesday.
Betsy Ruhe, the city councilwoman who represents the area near the crash site, said UPS was one of Louisville’s economic backbones.
“We all know somebody who works at UPS and they’re all texting their friends, their family, to make sure they’re safe,” said Ms. Ruhe, whose cousin works at UPS. “Sadly, some of those texts are going to go unanswered.”
Pooja Salhotra, Peter Eavis, Bernard Mokam, Kevin Williams and Jacey Fortin reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Rylee Kirk reports on breaking news, trending topics and major developing stories for The Times.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
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