On Wednesday, the death toll from a cargo plane crash in Kentucky rose to 12. Investigators said the accident was caused by one of the engines catching fire and detaching during takeoff.
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AFP reports: The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, which was operated by the package delivery company UPS and was bound for Hawaii, crashed at 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday (10:15 p.m. GMT) shortly after departing from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
The plane exploded into flames upon hitting businesses adjacent to the airport, killing multiple people on the ground. There was a three-person crew aboard.
"I'm deeply saddened to share that the death toll has risen to 12, with several individuals still unaccounted for," Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg wrote on X.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear called the tragedy “heartbreaking” and “unimaginable.”
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sent teams to Louisville to investigate the accident. NTSB member Todd Inman told reporters that investigators reviewed closed-circuit airport footage showing the left engine detaching from the wing during takeoff.
While the plane crashed, destroying or damaging multiple buildings and leaving a fiery debris field nearly half a mile (800 meters) long, the left engine remained on the airfield, Inman said.
He added that the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — known as a plane’s black boxes — had been located and would be sent to Washington, D.C., for analysis.
Tuesday’s crash was reportedly the deadliest in the global package delivery giant’s history. UPS's main hub, Worldport, is in Louisville, where UPS employs thousands of people.
UPS has halted package sorting operations at its facility.
– 38,000 gallons of fuel –
Video shared by WLKY showed the left engine ablaze as the aircraft attempted to take off.
By early Wednesday, Greenberg announced on X that aviation officials had reopened a runway.
Airport spokesman Jonathan Bevin said the cargo flight “went down three miles south of the airfield” after taking off.
The plane was carrying 38,000 gallons of fuel for its long-haul flight to Hawaii and narrowly missed a major Ford vehicle assembly plant, which employs 3,000 people and is adjacent to the UPS Worldport facility.
“It could have been significantly worse,” Beshear said of the tragedy.
Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters sprayed water on the flames, with smoke billowing from the area.
Beshear said the aircraft hit a petroleum recycling facility "pretty directly."
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the plane was built in 1991 and modified into a cargo aircraft. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1996.
Boeing, the U.S. aviation giant that has experienced multiple fatal crashes and safety incidents in the past decade, said in a statement, "We stand ready to support our customer and have offered technical assistance to the NTSB."
UPS operates nearly 2,000 daily flights to more than 200 countries, with a fleet of 516 aircraft. The company owns 294 of those planes and leases the rest.
The crash comes amid the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning of "mass chaos" due to a lack of air traffic control staff.
“You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we cannot manage it without the air traffic controllers,” Duffy told reporters on Tuesday.
Although a full investigation into all aspects of the crash, including air traffic control staffing, has been launched, NTSB member Inman said the agency was not aware of any staff shortages at Louisville’s airport at the time of the crash.
In January, an American Eagle airliner collided with a military helicopter outside of Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing all 67 people on board.
The crash that ended the country’s 16-year streak of no fatal commercial air crashes has added to concerns about the U.S. air traffic control system. Some regard it as an understaffed operation plagued by aging equipment.