In Louisville, Kentucky, efforts to locate victims from the catastrophic UPS cargo plane crash continued into a third day on Thursday. Investigators are working diligently to uncover the circumstances that led to the aircraft catching fire and losing an engine shortly after takeoff.
The intense blaze consumed the massive plane and spread to adjacent businesses, resulting in the tragic deaths of at least 12 individuals, including a child. Hopes of finding survivors in the scorched wreckage at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub, are slim.
According to Todd Inman from the National Transportation Safety Board, which is spearheading the investigation, the plane had three crew members aboard and was cleared for takeoff on Tuesday when a significant fire erupted in its left wing. Determining the exact cause of the fire and the engine detachment may take investigators over a year.
Inman explained that the aircraft managed to gain enough altitude to clear the runway’s perimeter fence before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been retrieved, and the detached engine was located on the airfield.
The crash triggered a chain of explosions, impacting Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and an auto salvage yard. According to Governor Andy Beshear, the child who perished was with a parent at the salvage yard.
Residents who witnessed the explosion, saw the billowing smoke, and smelled the burning fuel remain in shock as the community grapples with the aftermath of the tragedy.
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.”
The governor predicted that that death toll would rise, saying authorities were looking for a “handful of other people” but “we do not expect to find anyone else alive.”
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 centers.
The airport is 7 miles (11 kilometers) 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.
The status of the three UPS crew members aboard the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, made in 1991, was still unknown, according to Beshear. 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,” Guzzetti 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, he said.
Guzzetti said that jet and the UPS 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.
