A UPS cargo plane on Tuesday crashed and exploded in a massive fireball while taking off from the company’s global aviation hub in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least seven people and injuring 11, authorities said.
The plane crashed about 5:15pm as it was departing from UPS Worldport at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding in a huge fireball. Video also showed portions of a shredded roof next to the end of the runway.
Photo: AFP
The death toll had risen to at least seven on Tuesday night, and four of those killed were not on the plane, officials said.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said he expected the death toll to increase.
Eleven people were also hurt, some of whom had “very significant” injuries, he said.
Photo: Courtesy of X account @LeviDean98 via AFP
“Anybody who has seen the images, the video, knows how violent this crash is,” he said.
Beshear said he did not know the status of the three crew members aboard the plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 made in 1991.
UPS’ largest package handling facility is in Louisville and the company on Tuesday night announced it had halted package sorting at the center and did not say when it would resume.
The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
“We all know somebody who works at UPS,” Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said. “And they’re all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe. Sadly, some of those texts are probably going to go unanswered.”
The airport was shut down and was not expected to resume operations until yesterday morning.
The governor said a business, Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, appeared to be “hit pretty directly,” and a nearby auto parts operation was also affected.
Eric Richardson stood outside a police training academy where people gathered looking for information about missing loved ones on Tuesday night, hoping to find out what had happened to his girlfriend.
She had been at a metal recycling business near the explosion and was not answering her phone, he said, adding that her phone’s live location said she was still there.
Bobby Whelan, Richardson’s friend, had been in front of her in line, but had left minutes before the explosion.
He said that he was about a quarter mile down the road when he heard what sounded like a bomb exploding.
“We don’t even want to think about anything but the best,” Whelan said. “All our friends were there.”
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
Flooding in Vietnam has killed at least 10 people this week as the water level of a major river near tourist landmarks reached a 60-year high, authorities said yesterday. Vietnam’s coastal provinces, home to UNESCO world heritage site Hoi An ancient town, have been pummeled by heavy rain since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7m falling over 24 hours. At least 10 people have been killed, while eight others are missing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said. More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water 3m deep in some areas. People waded through
RSS