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(Washington) A cargo plane crashed Tuesday in a ball of fire shortly after taking off from Louisville, in the east-central United States, killing at least seven people according to the governor of Kentucky, who expects a higher toll.
UPS Flight 2976, which was due to fly to Hawaii, “crashed around 5:15 p.m. local time,” the US aviation regulator, the FAA, said, identifying the plane as a McDonnell Douglas MD-11.
The plane had “three crew members on board,” said in a separate statement the carrier UPS, whose airline division headquarters are located in Louisville.
“The news from Louisville is tough tonight, the death toll is now at seven, and that number is likely to rise,” Gov. Andy Beshear wrote on X, adding that air quality monitoring tools have been deployed.
An amateur video shared by local channel WLKY shows the plane’s left engine on fire as the plane skims the ground while trying to take off from the runway, before visibly exploding further away, causing a large plume of black smoke.
The plane ended its journey nearly 5 km from the airport, according to police.
Aerial images from local television also showed, shortly after the crash, a large blaze stretching several hundred meters long in an area of hangars and parking lots, with the flashing lights of rescue teams nearby.
“At this point, we believe the primary affected area is two businesses,” Beshear said.
Budget paralysis
Investigators from the US Transportation Safety Agency (NTSB) are due to arrive on site on Wednesday.
Tuesday’s 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.
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.
If the budgetary paralysis continues beyond this week, American airspace could even be partially closed, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Tuesday.
UPS Airlines, the airline division of the American courier and package delivery group, was operating a fleet of around 500 cargo planes at the beginning of September, including 27 MD-11s, the aircraft involved in Tuesday’s accident.
The last major air accident in the United States occurred on January 29 near Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, when a military helicopter collided with an airliner about to land, killing 67 people in total.
