At least 12 killed when UPS plane lost engine, crashed on takeoff
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
By FRANCESCA REGALADO and MICHAEL LEVENSON
At least 12 people were killed when a UPS cargo plane that was loaded with 38,000 gallons of fuel for a flight to Honolulu crashed shortly after taking off from Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday.
Airport security footage showed the left engine “detaching from the wing” during takeoff, J. Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Wednesday. He said that the airplane’s flight data recorder had been recovered and would be sent to a lab for analysis.
The crash ignited a huge fire and scattered debris over a large area south of the airport, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. The airport, which was closed Tuesday night, reopened Wednesday morning. Officials were combing the crash site and warned that the death toll could rise.
Here’s what we know about the crash:
The plane crashed as it was taking off.
Three UPS crew members were on the MD-11 plane as it departed for Honolulu around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said.
After the plane was cleared for takeoff, there was a “large plume of fire” in the area of the left wing, Inman said Wednesday. The plane lifted off, gained enough altitude to clear a fence at the end of the runway and then crashed, igniting a massive fire. The detached engine remained on airport property, he said.
The plane, which was loaded with 38,000 gallons of fuel, hit two businesses, including a petroleum recycling facility, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said. Some storage tanks containing propane and oil at the crash site ruptured, but the fire was almost entirely contained, Brian O’Neill, chief of the Louisville Fire Department, said Tuesday.
There was no hazardous cargo on the plane, Mayor Craig Greenberg of Louisville said. Beshear said Wednesday that he was declaring a state of emergency to allow the state to quickly deploy resources to the crash scene.
At least 12 people were killed.
Authorities said that at least 12 people had died from the crash. The three crew members aboard the plane were believed to be among the dead, Greenberg said. The names of the victims have not been released.
Nine people were still missing, Greenberg said Thursday. Three of them were employees of Grade A Auto Parts, a business that was hit, said Joey Garber, the company’s chief operating officer.
After the crash, 15 victims were brought to hospitals that are part of the University of Louisville, and were treated for burns, shrapnel wounds and other injuries, Jason W. Smith, chief executive of the university health system, said Wednesday. Thirteen patients were discharged, but two were still in critical condition Wednesday, he said.
Louisville is the main air hub for UPS.
The crash disrupted cargo operations for UPS, which has its largest air cargo hub, called Worldport, in Louisville. In a statement, UPS called the city the home of its airline and thousands of employees, and said that package sorting operations there would be halted overnight.
The Louisville airport was the world’s fifth busiest for cargo traffic last year, behind airports in Hong Kong; Shanghai; Memphis, Tennessee; and Anchorage, Alaska, according to Airports Council International, an industry lobbying group.
The airport reopened Wednesday morning, but officials said that delays and cancellations were likely. A shelter-in-place order that was issued Tuesday evening was reduced to a quarter-mile radius around the airport. The local school district said classes would be canceled Wednesday.
Before Wednesday, the most recent crash involving a UPS plane happened in 2013, when a jet that departed from Louisville crashed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing its two pilots.