(The Lion) — The death toll in the crash of a UPS plane Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky, has risen to 12, making it one of the deadliest crashes on U.S. soil in the last 15 years.
The Honolulu-bound cargo plane’s left wing caught fire and an engine fell off immediately following takeoff, a federal official said, according to the Associated Press.
The aircraft burst into flames upon crashing just seconds after lifting off from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Three crew members on board perished, and nine others also died. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg updated the death toll to 12 Wednesday evening.
Gov. Andy Beshear said the damage could have been even worse if the plane had hit a nearby Ford factory or the city’s convention center.
The plane was departing UPS Worldport, the company’s global shipping hub, which processes 2 million packages daily and conducts 300 incoming and outgoing flights. It paused operations after the crash but resumed flights Wednesday with at least one runway open.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are studying the airplane’s “black box” voice and data recorder and other evidence to determine the crash’s cause, a process that could take more than a year, the AP reported. The FBI is helping recover debris, which reportedly stretched for half a mile.
A former federal crash investigator told the AP the crash bore some similarities to a 1979 incident when the left engine of an American Airlines jet fell off as it was leaving Chicago O’Hare Airport, killing 273 people. Both planes had the same General Electric engines and had undergone substantial maintenance in the month before crashing, Jeff Guzzetti said. The UPS plane was in San Antonio from early September to mid-October, although it was not known what type of maintenance was done during that time.
The UPS crash is the second-most deadly in the U.S. since 2009, when 50 people died in a commuter jet crash near Buffalo, New York. The U.S. went nearly 15 years without a double-digit air fatality until an American Eagle flight collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in January, killing 67 people.
While officials have not suggested the government shutdown was a contributing factor to the crash, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had warned earlier on Tuesday of coming “mass chaos and mass flight delays” since federal air traffic controllers were about to miss their second paycheck.
Duffy announced Wednesday 40 “high volume” airports will reduce their traffic by 10% to deal with the shortage. The cuts, which are starting Friday and expected to be fully implemented by next week, include Louisville as well as Los Angeles, Atlanta and the three major New York City-area airports, CBS reported.
