(Washington) The death toll from the crash of a cargo plane which crashed on takeoff Tuesday after one of its engines came loose at Louisville airport, in the east-central United States, is now 12 dead, according to a new report published Wednesday evening which still reports several missing.
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 from the American carrier UPS which was due to reach Hawaii, crashed late Tuesday afternoon in Kentucky, destroying buildings and generating an impressive plume of thick smoke.
“I am deeply saddened to report that the death toll has risen to 12 and that several people are still missing,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said on X Wednesday evening. The death toll so far was 11.
According to one of the investigators from the American Transportation Safety Agency (NTSB) dispatched to the scene, Todd Inman, the images from the airport surveillance cameras “show the left engine (of the aircraft) detaching from the wing during acceleration on takeoff”.
The engine remained “on the airfield,” he told reporters, adding that the two flight recorders, commonly known as “black boxes,” had been sent to Washington for analysis.
An amateur video broadcast by local channel WLKY shows the plane’s left engine on fire as the plane skims the ground while trying to take off, before exploding further away. Other images then show a large blaze spreading over several hundred meters in an area of hangars and parking lots.
PHOTO JON CHERRY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Smoke rises from the crash site of a UPS cargo plane at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport on November 4, 2025.
The plane ended its journey nearly 5 km from the airport, according to police, and would have hit “quite directly” an oil recycling facility, according to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
The trijet, which was carrying around 144,000 liters of fuel, also narrowly missed hitting a Ford vehicle assembly plant employing some 3,000 people. “It could have been much worse,” Mr. Beshear said.
Three crew members were on board, according to UPS, whose airline division is based in Louisville, its main air hub in the United States.
Flight deletions
As of early September, UPS Airlines operated a fleet of approximately 500 cargo planes, including 27 MD-11s.
On Wednesday, the American courier and parcel delivery group suspended all its sorting operations in Louisville for the second day in a row.
Canceled the evening before, flights were reinstated Wednesday at Louisville’s Mohamed Ali International Airport, Mayor Craig Greenberg announced.
PHOTO JON CHERRY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A plume of smoke from a UPS cargo plane crash is visible at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, November 4, 2025
The accident comes at a time when the consequences of the budgetary paralysis, due to a disagreement between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, are being particularly felt in the field of air transport in the United States.
For several weeks, there have been shortages of air traffic controllers – who have been working since 1er October without being paid – leading to delays and cancellations of flights across the country.
The government announced on Wednesday that it would ask airlines to cancel flights from Friday “to reduce pressure” on air traffic control, which is facing high absenteeism due to this “shutdown”.
The last major air accident in the United States occurred on January 29 near Washington’s Ronald Reagan Airport, when a military helicopter collided with an airliner about to land, killing a total of 67 people.
