UPS plane catches fire on takeoff, black boxes recovered in US
US firefighters (Illustrative photo: Getty Images)
Investigators have recovered the flight recorders from a UPS cargo plane that crashed near Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least 12 people, Reuters and Associated Press report.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed that both recorders, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, have been found and sent for analysis.
Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said a large fire broke out in the plane’s left wing shortly after it was cleared for takeoff.
The NTSB will now attempt to determine what caused the fire and why the engine detached, a process that could take investigators more than a year.
Todd Inman noted that the plane had gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the runway before crashing near Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport.
Security footage shows the left engine breaking away from the wing during takeoff.
Both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been recovered, and the detached engine was found on the airfield. Debris from the crash was scattered over a wide area.
Louisville authorities reported that the airport has resumed operations, but the affected runway is expected to remain closed for about 10 more days.
Initial details of the plane crash
As previously reported by RBC-Ukraine, a UPS cargo plane crashed around 5:15 p.m. local time while departing from Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport en route to Honolulu.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told local station WLKY-TV that the jet fuel on board posed a serious hazard.
Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order for all areas north of the airport up to the Ohio River. The airport is only about a 10-minute drive from downtown Louisville, near residential neighborhoods, museums, and a water park.
The crashed plane, built in 1991, belonged to UPS, which operates its largest logistics hub in Louisville. The facility employs thousands of workers, handles more than 300 daily flights, and sorts over 400,000 packages per hour.
