At least seven people were killed when a large, wide-body UPS cargo plane crashed while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, igniting an enormous fire and causing “multiple injuries” on the ground, authorities said.
UPS Flight 2976 crashed at about 5:15pm local time (22:15 GMT) on Tuesday as it was departing from Louisville’s Muhammad Ali airport, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
UPS said in an initial statement that three crew members were on board the aircraft, but provided no information as to any casualties or injuries.
The Associated Press news agency said that four of the seven people confirmed killed were not on board the aircraft.
“Anybody who has seen the images, the video, knows how violent this crash is,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said after earlier telling a news conference that three people were confirmed killed and the death toll was expected to rise.
“We have at least 11 injuries, some of them very significant, that are being treated by local hospitals. Again, I think that number will get larger,” Beshear said.
Beshear also said that the National Transportation Safety Board will launch an investigation into the crash, assisted by the FAA.
Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters blasted water onto a huge fire, with smoke billowing from the disaster area.
Beshear said the plane crashed directly into two local businesses – a petroleum recycling company and an auto parts company.
Louisville Metro Police Department said in a post on social media that a “shelter-in-place” notice was issued for all locations within an 8km (5-mile) radius of the airport.
Credit: aljazeera.com
