A massive plume of smoke could be seen billowing at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) in Kentucky after a UPS cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff at 5:15 Eastern time.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear took to social media platform X to write that “the situation is serious” as he heads to the site and more details around the accident continue to emerge.
While UPS did not confirm injuries to the three crew members aboard, the Louisville Metro Police Department wrote that injuries have been reported as the city issued a shelter-in-place order for any area within five miles of the airport. This means that anyone already in the area needs to stay where they are or move to the nearest indoor location while those outside it need to keep away.
UPS plane crash in Louisville: airport shut down, locals told to “stay away”
As it is a smaller city of 640,000 residents, Louisville’s downtown is located just 10 miles from the airport so large swaths of the city are captured by the shelter-in-place order.
“This is an active scene with fire and debris,” the Louisville Metro Police Department wrote on X. “Stay away.”
UPS Flight 2976 was operating on a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter plane headed toward Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Honolulu. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board are currently investigating the crash while immediate speculation from aviation experts points toward engine trouble.
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The MD-11 is a three-engine jet with the ability to transport over 633,000 pounds of cargo. The specific plane in question was manufactured in 1991 by McDonnell Douglas, which was later acquired by Boeing in 1997.
According to a later update by Beshear, the plane was carrying 280,000 gallons of fuel that set of a massive fire around an auto recycling yard and truck parking lot near the airfield.
This type of plane is used primarily by cargo airlines such as FedEx Express, Lufthansa Cargo and UPS. Louisville Airport is home to UPS Worldport, its main packaging hub that the company says is also the largest package processing facility in the world. On an average day, it works through 400,000 packages per hour.
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What to know about the UPS plane crash, a developing situation
Firefighters fought to put out the flames into early Tuesday night. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg also said that the city has “every emergency agency responding to the scene.”
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All flights at SDF have also been suspended indefinitely as the situation develops.
“At this time, all arriving and departing flights at SDF are temporarily suspended and the airfield is closed,” Louisville International posted on X. “Passengers should closely monitor their flight status via their airline’s website or mobile app.”
Greenberg told local television outlet that the situation warrants “extreme reason for concern in so many different ways” given both the crash itself and the large amount of fuel that the plane was carrying.
This is a breaking story that we will update as more information becomes known.
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