Officials scour charred site of Kentucky UPS plane crash for victims and
answers
[November 06, 2025]
By BRUCE SCHREINER, HALLIE GOLDEN and DYLAN LOVAN
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The grim task of finding victims from the
firestorm that followed the crash of a UPS cargo plane in Louisville,
Kentucky, entered a third day Thursday as investigators gather
information to determine why the aircraft caught fire and lost an engine
on takeoff.
The inferno consumed the enormous plane and spread to nearby businesses,
killing at least 12 people, including a child, and leaving little hope
of finding survivors in the charred area of the crash at UPS Worldport,
the company’s global aviation hub.
The plane with three people aboard had been cleared for takeoff Tuesday
when a large fire developed in the left wing, said Todd Inman, a member
of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the
investigation. But determining why it caught fire and the engine fell
off could take investigators more than a year.
The plane gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the
runway before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali
International Airport, Inman said. The cockpit voice recorder and data
recorder have since been recovered, and the engine was discovered on the
airfield, he said.
The crash and explosion had a devastating ripple effect, striking and
causing smaller blasts at Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and hitting an
auto salvage yard. The child who was killed was with a parent at the
salvage yard, according to Gov. Andy Beshear.
Some people who heard the boom, saw the smoke and smelled burning fuel
were still stunned a day later.
Stooges Bar and Grill bartender Kyla Kenady said lights suddenly
flickered as she took a beer to a customer on the patio.
“I saw a plane in the sky coming down over top of our volleyball courts
in flames,” she said. “In that moment, I panicked. I turned around, ran
through the bar screaming, telling everyone that a plane was crashing.”
The governor predicted that that death toll would rise, saying
authorities were looking for a “handful of other people” but “we do not
expect to find anyone else alive.”
University of Louisville Hospital said two people were in critical
condition in the burn unit. Eighteen people were treated and discharged
at that hospital or other health care centers.
The airport is 7 miles (11 kilometers) from downtown Louisville, close
to the Indiana state line, residential areas, a water park and museums.
The airport resumed operations on Wednesday, with at least one runway
open.
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The ATC tower is seen while smoke rises from the crash site of UPS
Flight 2976 near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport on
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
The status of the three UPS crew members aboard the McDonnell
Douglas MD-11, made in 1991, was still unknown, according to Beshear.
It was not clear if they were being counted among the dead.
UPS said it was “terribly saddened.”
The Louisville package handling facility is the company's largest.
The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300
flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said a number of
things could have caused the fire as the UPS plane was rolling down
the runway.
“It could have been the engine partially coming off and ripping out
fuel lines. Or it could have been a fuel leak igniting and then
burning the engine off,” Guzzetti said.
The crash bears a lot of similarities to one in 1979 when the left
engine fell off an American Airlines jet as it was departing
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, killing 273 people, he said.
Guzzetti said that jet and the UPS plane were equipped with the same
General Electric engines and both planes underwent heavy maintenance
in the month before they crashed. The NTSB blamed the Chicago crash
on improper maintenance. The 1979 crash involved a DC-10, but the
MD-11 UPS plane 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 and if it had any impact on the crash.
___
Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press reporters Ed White in
Detroit; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; Josh Funk in
Omaha, Nebraska; Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller in Nashville,
Tennessee; and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire,
contributed.
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