LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least seven people are dead and 11 others injured after a UPS cargo plane caught fire and crashed Tuesday while taking off from the company’s distribution hub in Louisville, leaving a trail of flames near the runway.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, built in 1991, went down around 5:15 p.m. after its left wing caught fire. It was fully loaded with fuel for the long flight to Honolulu from UPS Worldport. The facility at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport has some 300 daily flights.
Four of the people killed were on the ground, Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Neill said. The victims have not been identified. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the 11 people who were hurt suffered “very significant” injuries.
Here’s what is known about the crash.
A path of destruction
Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke as it lifted briefly off the ground before crashing in a massive fireball. Residents who heard loud booms captured footage of multiple explosions and heavy smoke rising over the airport.
The fire chief said the blaze stretched nearly a city block. There was no hazardous cargo on board, officials said.
Fire and debris quickly spread over an industrial area adjacent to the end of the runway, and parts of a nearby building’s roof appeared shredded. Satellite photos of the neighborhood show a wide a parking lot and large water tanks in the vicinity.
Search for more victims
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told WLKY-TV that crews were preparing to resume the search for victims Wednesday. A shelter-in-place order that initially covered a one-mile radius was reduced to a quarter mile as air quality improved.
There was no hazardous cargo on board, officials said.
UPS halts operations
UPS has said the National Transportation Safety Board will handle the crash investigation.
Louisville is home to UPS’s largest package handling facility, which employs thousands of workers and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour. The company said it was halting package sorting operations Tuesday night at the facility and did not indicate when operations would resume.
Airport restarts flights
The Louisville airport shut down after the crash but began to resume operations Wednesday morning. Flights canceled Tuesday were prioritized for departure, although some Wednesday flights remained grounded.
In May 2017, a propeller plane carrying UPS cargo that took off from Louisville crashed at West Virginia International Yeager Airport in Charleston, killing the pilot and co-pilot.
Aviation expert reacts
Aviation attorney Pablo Rojas said video of the crash suggests the plane struggled to gain altitude as fire blazed along its left side near an engine.
“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.
He said it’s hard to know if the pilot saw the flames, and that even if the crew realized there was a problem, aborting the takeoff might’ve been even more dangerous.
