LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two days after the deadly UPS plane disaster, the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, called on the public to attend a vigil Thursday and “share our grief” as crews still worked to find or identify victims of the crash and subsequent firestorm.
“We hope we’ve located all the victims at this point. But again, we don’t know,” said Mayor Craig Greenberg.
The inferno destroyed the huge plane and spread to nearby businesses, killing at least 12 people, including a child and three UPS workers on a freight transporter. No one expects to find crash survivors at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub.
The plane was cleared for takeoff Tuesday when a large fire broke out in the left wing and the engine quit, said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board who is leading the investigation.
Meanwhile, UPS Worldport operations resumed Wednesday night with Next Day Air, or overnight sorting, spokesman Jim Mayer said.
“Our goal is to start returning the network to a normal cadence,” Mayer said.
Greenberg described the crash site as “horrendous” with “burnt, crushed metal”. Part of the plane’s tail, he said, looked like it was sticking out of a storage silo.
“You hear people say, ‘Oh, you only see that in the movies.’ This was worse than the movies,” Greenberg told reporters.
Teamsters Local 89, which represents UPS workers, planned a public vigil for late afternoon. The mayor urged the public to attend, calling it an opportunity to “share our heartbreak” and “find the strength to move on.”
The plane gained enough height to clear a fence at the end of the runway before crashing just outside Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Inman said. The voice recorder and data recorder in the cockpit were recovered and the engine was discovered at the airport, he said.
Greenberg said the remains of 12 people have been found, and investigators believe that number includes the three who were on the UPS plane. The coroner’s office, he added, is working to confirm the identities and determine if the others are the nine people who remain missing based on reports from families.
UPS Louisville package handling facility is the largest company. The hub in the region employs more than 20,000 people, handles 300 flights a day and sorts more than 400,000 parcels an hour.
“We have received an outpouring of support from around the world – every prayer and word of encouragement is deeply appreciated,” UPS said.
The crash and explosion caused even more explosions and destruction at businesses in the industrial corridor just outside the airport. The University of Louisville Hospital said Wednesday that two people were in critical condition in the burn unit. The others were treated and released.
Sabit Alijev, owner of Kentucky Truck Parts and Service, still doesn’t know if his business is afloat. He said he was at the store on Tuesday when a burning plane flew by, followed by an explosion. He went outside and recorded what sounded like another explosion.
“It was like hell,” Aliyev said. “There was fire everywhere. It was up to the sky.”
He and his workers fled across an empty lot, but were suddenly trapped by a high security fence until a police officer used a pair of barricade shears to cut open the gate.
“I still have a life, but 12 people – not anymore,” he said.
Jeff Guzzetti, a retired federal crash investigator, said a number of things could have caused the fire as the plane, a 1991 McDonnell Douglas MD-11, taxied down the runway.
“It could have been an engine that partially fell out and ruptured the fuel line. Or it could have been a fuel leak igniting and then burning the engine,” Guzzetti said.
The crash is similar to one in 1979 when the left engine of an American Airlines plane cut off as it took off from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, killing 273 people, he said.
Guzzetti said the jet and the UPS plane were equipped with the same General Electric engines, and both planes underwent heavy maintenance a month before they crashed. The NTSB blamed the Chicago crash on improper maintenance. In 1979, a crash involved a DC-10; the UPS MD-11 aircraft is based on the DC-10.
Flight records show the UPS plane was on the ground in San Antonio from Sept. 3 to Oct. 18, but it was unclear what maintenance was performed.
Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire contributed.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
