LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The challenging search for victims in the aftermath of the UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, continued into its third day on Thursday. Investigators are delving into the causes behind the aircraft’s fiery explosion and the subsequent engine failure during takeoff.
The blaze engulfed the large plane and extended to nearby businesses, resulting in the tragic loss of at least 12 lives, including a child. Hopes of finding any survivors in the scorched wreckage at UPS Worldport, the company’s global air logistics hub, are dwindling.
On Tuesday, the aircraft, carrying three crew members, had been granted clearance for takeoff. However, a significant fire erupted in its left wing, according to Todd Inman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who is overseeing the investigation. Pinpointing the precise reasons for the fire and the engine’s detachment may take over a year.
Despite the unfolding disaster, the plane managed to ascend enough to clear the runway boundary before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Inman noted. Fortunately, the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been retrieved, and the missing engine was located on the airfield.
The crash resulted in a catastrophic series of events, triggering additional explosions at Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and impacting a nearby auto salvage yard. The child who perished was reportedly with a parent at the salvage yard, as confirmed by Governor Andy Beshear.
As the community grapples with the aftermath, those who witnessed the explosion, observed the towering smoke, and inhaled the acrid scent of burning fuel remain in shock days later.
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 Wednesday. “In that moment, I panicked. I turned around, ran through the bar screaming, telling everyone that a plane was crashing.”
The governor predicted that the death toll would rise, saying authorities are 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 and medical facilities.
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.
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; 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.
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