Engine fell off UPS cargo plane before deadly crash near Kentucky airport | Kentucky

The left wing of a UPS cargo plane caught fire and one engine crashed into a massive fireball in Louisville, Kentucky, Tuesday night, killing at least nine people and injuring 11, a federal investigator said.

At least 28 National Transportation Safety Board agents arrived at the site and began searching for clues about the possible cause of the disaster, in which the UPS plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali international airport, leaving behind a fiery trail of destruction on the ground and a large cloud of black smoke.

NTSB agent Todd Inman, who is leading the investigation, said that after the plane was cleared for takeoff, a large fire broke out in the left wing. The plane gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the runway before crashing into airport property, Inman told reporters.

In the airport security video, “the left engine can be seen separating from the wing during takeoff,” he said.

The cockpit voice recorder and data recorder were recovered and the engine was found at the airport, Inman said.

“There’s a lot of different parts of this plane in a lot of different places,” he said, describing the debris field that stretched for a half-mile.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 plane had three crew members on board and crashed around 5:15 p.m. local time on Tuesday. He was going to Honolulu.

Nine deaths and 11 injuries have been reported so far, but Kentucky governor Andy Beshear has said he expects that death toll to rise. The UofL Health hospital system said it treated 10 patients related to the accident, two of whom were in critical condition at the hospital’s burn center.

“First responders located a total of nine people [dead] There are victims at the scene of the UPS accident. “We will continue to provide information as it becomes available,” Craig Greenberg said. mayor of louisville.

Four of the dead were not on the plane, Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Neill said.

Hundreds of firefighters rushed to battle fires on the ground after the crash, but local leaders asked the public not to remove any debris and instead report it to help investigators piece together the cause of the deadly incident.

“We have created a form where residents can report debris in your yard,” Greenberg shared on X.

Investigators will try to find out how a seemingly routine flight (300 flights a day operate at the UPS hub in Louisville) went so wrong. Officials said there were no hazardous materials on the plane.

In videos taken by viewers, it was seen that there were flames on the left wing of the plane, the plane took off from the ground and then crashed and turned into a large fireball. Nearby residents reported hearing loud explosions and witnessing flames in the sky and on the ground.

Speaking to the Associated Press, aviation lawyer Pablo Rojas said the amount of fuel on the plane would make a large explosion almost inevitable. “There is little to contain the flames and the plane itself acts almost like a bomb due to the amount of fuel,” he said.

Former Department of Transportation inspector general Mary Schiavo analyzed video of the crash for CNN.

“[The parts] “The centrifugal force of the engine, the centrifugal force from the engines, the blades spin and they can cut through the aircraft and cut the fuel lines,” Schiavo said of the parts. “It’s clear that the engine came out of that plane before the final impact. The poor pilots couldn’t have done anything at that point.”

Louisville Airport canceled all outbound flights following the crash. The shelter-in-place order surrounding the airport has now been reduced to a quarter-mile radius around the crash site.