LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A large UPS cargo plane with three people aboard crashed and exploded Tuesday while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, igniting a massive fire that left a thick plume of black smoke over the area.
The plane crashed about 5:15 p.m. as it was departing for Honolulu from Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane then lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding in a huge fireball. Video also revealed portions of a building’s shredded roof next to the end of the runway.
“We know that there are injuries. We don’t know yet about fatalities, but we’re asking all Kentuckians to pray for those that have been impacted,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told The Associated Press.
The crash has drawn a massive response, including from police and fire agencies, and because of the flames, some responders “have had to shelter behind different things,” Beshear said.
“It is still a very dangerous situation with different flammables or potentially explosive materials,” Beshear said.
Mayor Craig Greenberg told WLKY-TV that fuel on the plane was an “extreme reason for concern in so many different ways.”
UPS’s largest package handling facility is in Louisville. The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
A shelter-in-place order was extended to all areas north of the airport to the Ohio River. The Louisville airport is only a 10-minute drive from the city’s downtown, which sits on the river bordering the Indiana state line. There are residential areas, a water park and museums in the area.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airplane owned by UPS was manufactured in 1991.