At least 7 dead in Kentucky UPS cargo plane explosion

What happened

A UPS cargo jet crashed and exploded while taking off from Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville on Tuesday evening, killing at least seven people, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said. Another 11 people were hurt when the plane fell on nearby businesses, and some had “very significant” injuries, he said. “Anybody who has seen the images, the video, knows how violent this crash is.”

Who said what

Footage of the crash showed the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 traveling down the runway with flames flaring from its left wing, then struggling to climb before dropping and exploding in a massive fireball. The plane, en route to Hawaii, was carrying 38,000 gallons of fuel, officials said. UPS runs 300 flights a day out of the Louisville airport, where its Worldport global air hub sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.

“This is a UPS town,” Betsy Ruhe, a Louisville Metro Council member, said at a press conference. “We all know somebody that works at UPS. And they are all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure that everyone is safe. Sadly, some of those texts will probably go unanswered.”

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What next?

The three crew members aboard the UPS jet are presumed dead, and Beshear said the death toll was “expected to rise.” The last UPS air crash was in 2013 outside Birmingham, Alabama, and killed the two pilots.