What We Know About the UPS Plane Crash in Louisville

U.S.|What We Know About the UPS Plane Crash in Louisville

Travelers were advised to expect flight delays and cancellations on Thursday at Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Ky., after a UPS cargo plane crashed near the runway, leaving at least seven people dead.

The crash on Tuesday afternoon ignited a large fire in a cluster of buildings south of the airport, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky. Firefighters were close to fully containing the fire, the authorities said.

The airport was closed and all departing flights were canceled on Tuesday night. There were an unknown number of injured people, according to authorities.

Here’s what we know about the crash:

The plane crashed as it was taking off.

Three UPS crew members were on the MD-11 plane for Flight 2976 as it departed for Honolulu around 5:15 p.m., the authorities said. It descended shortly after taking off and crashed three miles south of the airport, the police said.

There was no hazardous cargo on the plane, Mayor Craig Greenberg of Louisville said in a Tuesday night briefing. Some storage tanks containing propane and oil at the crash site had ruptured, but the fire was almost entirely contained, Brian O’Neill, chief of the Louisville Fire Department, said on Tuesday.

A team of investigators would arrive in Kentucky and provide updates on Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a social media post on Tuesday.

At least seven people were killed.

The authorities said that seven people had died from the crash. The identities of the victims were not yet known. UPS said in a statement on Tuesday that it had not confirmed any injuries or fatalities among its crew.

The plane hit buildings that housed two businesses, a waste company and Grade A Auto Parts. Three employees of Grade A were still missing, said Joey Garber, its chief operating officer.

Ten victims were brought to hospitals that are part of the University of Louisville, some with critical burns and others with injuries that were not life-threatening, said David McArthur, a spokesman for the University of Louisville Hospital.

Louisville is the main air hub for UPS.

The crash disrupted cargo operations for UPS, which has its largest air cargo hub, called Worldport, in Louisville. In a statement, UPS called the city the home of its airline and thousands of employees, and said that package sorting operations there would be halted overnight.

Louisville airport was the world’s fifth busiest airport for cargo traffic last year, behind Hong Kong, Shanghai, Memphis and Anchorage, according to Airports Council International, an industry lobbying group.

The airport would reopen on Wednesday morning, Mr. Greenberg said. The airport said on social media that delays and cancellations were likely on Wednesday. A shelter-in-place order, which was issued Tuesday evening, was reduced to a one-mile radius around the airport. The local school district said classes would be canceled on Wednesday.

Before Wednesday, the most recent crash involving UPS happened in 2013, when a plane that departed from Louisville crashed in Birmingham, Ala., killing its two pilots.

Alexandra E. Petri and Pooja Salhotra contributed reporting.