At Least 3 Dead, 11 Injured in Louisville Plane Crash

A large UPS cargo plane with three people aboard crashed and exploded Tuesday while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, leaving at least three people dead and 11 injured. Those numbers are expected to grow, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says. The plane crashed about 5:15pm as it was departing for Honolulu from Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The crash ignited a huge fire on the ground.

• 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're asking all Kentuckians to pray for those that have been impacted," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tells the AP. 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 says. "It is still a very dangerous situation with different flammables or potentially explosive materials," Beshear says.
• "I can confirm that there was no specifically hazardous cargo on board the plane that would create an environmental issue for those around the site, but the impact and where it impacted could create those types of situation," he said, per the Louisville Courier Journal.
• The governor named two businesses directly affected by the crash, Grade A Auto Parts and Kentucky Petroleum Recycling. "It looks like they were hit pretty directly," he said of the latter business.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told WLKY 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 and has 300 daily flights. 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. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airplane owned by UPS was manufactured in 1991, the AP reports.