A UPS plane exploded above Kentucky’s Muhammad Ali Airport Tuesday, killing at least nine and injuring 11. First responders are searching for the remaining victims in the wreckage
The plane crashed at 5:15pm while taking off from a central UPS hub in Louisville. The plane was scheduled to leave for Honolulu. Videos of the crash circulated online, revealing the left engine of the plane in flames as it took off, before it crashed and exploded.
Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear, addressed the event through social media, detailing that 16 families have claimed that they have loved ones unaccounted for. As Beshear told CNN, “This plane barely missed a restaurant bar. It was very close to a very large Ford plant with hundreds, if not a thousand-plus workers.”
Beshear emphasized optimism in the wake of the event, reminding the public that the plane could have hit other structures. “It was very close to our convention center that’s having a big livestock show that people were arriving for.” That being said, the plane directly hit Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and an auto parts company, both of which were hit “pretty directly.”
After the crash, flights were grounded and stopped, a school district cancelled classes, and a shelter-in-place warning was issued by the city of Louisville in order to prevent residents from inhaling the smoke. Flights resumed Wednesday morning.
The UPS operation at Louisville is massive, and for this reason the organization calls it by the name Worldport. UPS is, as a result, the largest employer in Louisville, responsible for 20,000 jobs in the area.
With its scale, the distribution center processes two million packages each day, but can handle more if necessary.
Betsy Ruhe, a member of the Louisville Metro Council, told the Associated Press Tuesday that everyone in the city knows someone who works for UPS. “My cousin’s a UPS pilot. My aide’s tennis partner is a UPS pilot. The intern in my office works overnight at UPS to pay for college,” Ruhe said.
According to an interview between the Associated Press with Pablo Rojas, an attorney on aviation, the plane was struggling to take off. Rojas noted that the plane functioned almost “like a bomb” due to the large amount of fuel that it carried.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced it was sending a team to investigate the crash.
Former aviation accident investigator, Jeff Guzzetti, noted that it would be too early to know definitively what was wrong with the plane, whether it was the engine, the part of the plane that holds the engine in place, or another part of the aircraft. According to Guzzetti, the aircraft underwent extensive maintenance in the past month, and that it could have played a role in the accident itself.
