Three employees of Grade A Auto Parts in Louisville, Kentucky, remain missing after a UPS cargo plane crashed into the facility Tuesday shortly after takeoff from a nearby airport, killing at least 12 people.
Owner Sean Garber told the newspaper he watched in horror as his business caught fire during a video call from his CFO moments after the explosion.
“It looked like a real hellish fury around her,” Garber told CNN, describing a “huge ball of fire” that engulfed the facility as his employees screamed and ran from the flames.
Officials said three crew members aboard the UPS plane are believed to be among the dead, while most of the victims were on the ground when the plane hit the site.
Missing workers
Garber said three of his employees remain unaccounted for after the crash.
After the plane crashed into our business, a headcount revealed that three employees were missing, Garber told the reporter.
Two of the missing were inside the building, where employees were forced to jump out of windows after the heat melted the doors. A third was believed to have worked in the warehouse next door, Garber said, according to the report.
Scenes of chaos and heroism
Witnesses described scenes of chaos as doors melted, flames raged and people fled burning buildings. Garber said both employees and customers showed courage amid the disaster.
“I would have to imagine what a war zone looks like,” Garber said, adding that the devastation stretched across a half-mile-long field of debris.
Families waiting for answers
Authorities set up a family assistance center at the Louisville Police Training Academy, where distraught relatives waited for information about their missing loved ones.
A woman who was dumping scrap metal at Grade A Auto Parts at the time of the crash was also reported missing. Her boyfriend, Donald Henderson, told CNN affiliate WDRB that she decided to go to the yard just before the tragedy.
“I don’t want to go, (you) keep going,” Henderson recalled telling her.
“It’s the only one I have, so … I don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” he told WDRB.
Two victims remain in critical condition at University of Louisville Health, CNN reported Wednesday.
“No survival” conditions.
Garber said he had given up hope that his missing employees were still alive.
“It cannot be survived,” he said.
Each of the missing workers had spent years with the company — one nearly 20 years, another five and a third four years, Garber told CNN.
Meeting with their families early Wednesday morning, Garber said they were “in a state of shock compounded by uncertainty.”
A business in ruins, a community in mourning
Garber said his team is now trying to access computer records to help officials identify any customers who were at the facility when the crash occurred.
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