LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In a heartfelt tribute held Thursday, the community of Louisville gathered for a candlelight vigil to honor the lives lost in a devastating UPS plane tragedy that occurred just two days prior. The somber event also extended gratitude to the brave first responders, while recovery teams continued their efforts to locate or identify those affected by the crash and the subsequent blaze.
Mayor Craig Greenberg expressed hope earlier that all victims have been found, though he acknowledged uncertainty remains. “Our hope is that we have located all of the victims at this point. But again, we do not know,” he stated.
The catastrophic incident obliterated the large aircraft and spread destruction to adjacent businesses, resulting in the loss of at least 13 lives, including a child and three UPS personnel aboard the cargo plane. The likelihood of discovering any survivors from the crash at UPS Worldport, the company’s international aviation hub, appears grim.
According to Todd Inman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who is at the forefront of the investigation, the plane had been approved for takeoff on Tuesday when a massive fire erupted in its left wing, leading to the detachment of an engine.
In the wake of the disaster, operations at UPS Worldport resumed Wednesday night with its Next Day Air, or night sort, services, as confirmed by spokesperson Jim Mayer. Furthermore, all three runways at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport have been reopened.
Death toll rises to 13
The candlelight vigil, organized by Teamsters Local 89, the union representing UPS workers, commenced with a moment of silence at 5:14 p.m., marking the exact time the crash occurred two days earlier.
“This incident was so sudden, so unexpected,” the mayor told the crowd of 200. “No one had a chance to say goodbye to any of those who we have lost.”
Greenberg disclosed that the death toll had risen to 13.
Bob Travis, who is president of the Independent Pilots Association and flies for UPS, told vigil attendees that the work of emergency responders, public officials and the community has been “absolutely overwhelming and amazing.”
“Everybody’s seen the video,” he said of the crash. “It’s hard not to.”
Names of pilots released
UPS released the names of three people who died in the plane: Capt. Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt and International Relief Officer Capt. Dana Diamond.
Truitt lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and had been a pilot for UPS since 2021, flying the MD-11 airliner, according to Truitt’s LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was a captain for SkyWest Airlines, a flight instructor at Bode Aviation and graduated from The University of New Mexico.
Wartenberg lived in Independence, Kentucky, which sits south of Cincinnati, according to public records.
Diamond, the flight’s international relief officer, live in Caldwell, Texas, less than a two-hour drive east of Austin, according to public records.
Black box provides insight
Earlier Thursday, Greenberg described the crash site as “horrific,” with “charred, mangled metal.” Part of the plane’s tail, he said, appeared to be sticking out of a storage silo.
“You hear people say, ‘Oh, you only see that in the movies.’ This was worse than the movies,” Greenberg told reporters.
The plane’s last data recordings showed it had reached an altitude of 475 feet (145 meters) and a speed of 210 mph (340 kph) before crashing just outside the Louisville airport, Inman said Thursday.
The engine’s main component and pieces of engine fan blades were recovered from the airfield. Inman said UPS indicated that no maintenance work was performed before the flight “that would delay it in any way.” He noted that investigators will look at video to see what, if anything, was being done around the MD-11 aircraft in preceding days.
The UPS package handling facility in Louisville 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.
Flames, panic and more questions
The crash and explosion caused even more blasts and destruction at businesses in an industrial corridor just outside the airport.
Sabit Aliyev, the owner of Kentucky Truck Parts and Service, still doesn’t know if his business is standing. He said he was inside the shop Tuesday when the burning plane passed by, followed by an explosion. He went outside and recorded what sounded like another explosion.
“It was like hell,” Aliyev said. “There was fire all over. It was sky high.”
He and his workers fled over vacant land but were suddenly trapped by a high security fence until a police officer used bolt cutters to cut open a gate.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said a number of things could have caused the fire as the 34-year-old 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,” Guzzetti said.
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.
“We will look at every piece of maintenance done, from the San Antonio time all the way to the date of the flight. … It’s going to be a laborious process,” Inman of the NTSB said.
He said there was no reason to take any immediate safety actions against other MD-11 planes in service.
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Associated Press writers John Raby in Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Ed White in Detroit; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Jesse Bedayn in Denver contributed.
