Louisville (US): A UPS cargo plane’s left wing caught fire and an engine fell off just before it crashed and exploded after takeoff in Kentucky, a federal official has said, offering the first investigative details about a disaster that killed at least 12 people, including a child.
Finding survivors seemed unlikely as first responders searched the charred area of the crash at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub in Louisville, Gov Andy Beshear said Wednesday. The inferno consumed the enormous aircraft and spread to nearby businesses.
After being cleared for takeoff, a large fire developed in the left wing, said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation. The NTSB will now try to determine what caused the fire and why the engine fell off. It will likely take investigators more than a year to answer those questions.
The plane gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the runway before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Inman told reporters.
Airport security video “shows the left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll,” he said.
The cockpit voice recorder and data recorder were recovered, and the engine was discovered on the airfield, Inman said.
“There are a lot of different parts of this airplane in a lot of different places,” he said, describing a debris field that stretched for half a mile.
The plane with three people aboard crashed about 5:15 pm Tuesday as it was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport at the Louisville airport.
The crash had a devastating ripple effect, striking and causing smaller explosions at Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and hitting an auto salvage yard, Grade A Auto Parts. Beshear said the child who died was with a parent at the parts business.
Beshear earlier said it was a “blessing” that the plane did not hit a nearby Ford Motor factory or the convention centre.
Some people who heard the boom, saw the smoke and smelled burning fuel were still stunned a day later.
“I didn’t know if we were getting attacked. I didn’t know what was going on,” said Summer Dickerson, who works nearby.
Stooges Bar and Grill bartender Kyla Kenady said lights suddenly flickered as she took a beer to a customer on the patio.
“I saw a plane in the sky coming down over top of our volleyball courts in flames,” she said. “In that moment, I panicked. I turned around, ran through the bar screaming, telling everyone that a plane was crashing.”
Manager Lynn Cason said explosions, only about 90 metres away, shook the building three times — “like somebody was bombing us” — but no one there was injured.
“God was definitely with us,” Cason said.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced on the social platform X on Wednesday evening that the death toll had risen to 12, saying, “Please take a moment to hug your loved ones and check on your neighbours.”
The governor predicted that the death toll would rise, saying authorities were looking for a “handful of other people” but “we do not expect to find anyone else alive.”
Mark Little, chief of the Okolona Fire District in Louisville, said debris would have to be moved and searched, adding: “It will take us quite a while.”
University of Louisville Hospital said two people were in critical condition in the burn unit. Eighteen people were treated and discharged at that hospital or other health care centres.
The airport is 11 km from downtown Louisville, close to the Indiana state line, residential areas, a water park and museums. The airport resumed operations on Wednesday, with at least one runway open.
Beshear said he did not know the status of the three UPS crew members aboard the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 made in 1991. It was not clear if they were being counted among the dead.
UPS said it was “terribly saddened.” The Louisville package handling facility is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said a number of things could have caused the fire as the UPS plane was rolling down the runway.
“It could have been the engine partially coming off and ripping out fuel lines. Or it could have been a fuel leak igniting and then burning the engine off. It’s just too soon to tell,” Guzzetti said.
He said the crash bears a lot of similarities to one in 1979 when the left engine fell off an American Airlines jet as it was departing Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, killing 273 people.
Guzzetti said this UPS plane and the American plane were equipped with the same General Electric engines and both planes underwent heavy maintenance in the month before they crashed. The NTSB blamed the Chicago crash on improper maintenance. The 1979 crash involved a DC-10, but the MD-11 UPS plane is based on the DC-10.
Flight records show the UPS plane was on the ground in San Antonio from Sept 3 to Oct 18, but it was unclear what maintenance was performed and if it had any impact on the crash.
