Officials scour charred site of Kentucky UPS plane crash for victims and answers

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The grim task of finding victims from the firestorm that followed the crash of a UPS cargo plane in Louisville, Kentucky, entered a third day Thursday as investigators gather information to determine why the aircraft caught fire and lost an engine on takeoff.

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The inferno consumed the enormous plane and spread to nearby businesses, killing at least 12 people, including a child, and leaving little hope of finding survivors in the charred area of the crash at UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub.

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The plane with three people aboard had been cleared for takeoff Tuesday when a large fire developed in the left wing, said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation. But determining why it caught fire and the engine fell off could take investigators more than a year.

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The plane gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of the runway before crashing just outside Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Inman said. The cockpit voice recorder and data recorder have since been recovered, and the engine was discovered on the airfield, he said.

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The crash and explosion had a devastating ripple effect, striking and causing smaller blasts at Kentucky Petroleum Recycling and hitting an auto salvage yard. The child who was killed was with a parent at the salvage yard, according to Gov. Andy Beshear.

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Some people who heard the boom, saw the smoke and smelled burning fuel were still stunned a day later.

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Stooges Bar and Grill bartender Kyla Kenady said lights suddenly flickered as she took a beer to a customer on the patio.

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“I saw a plane in the sky coming down over top of our volleyball courts in flames,” she said. “In that moment, I panicked. I turned around, ran through the bar screaming, telling everyone that a plane was crashing.”

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The governor predicted that that death toll would rise, saying authorities were looking for a “handful of other people” but “we do not expect to find anyone else alive.”

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University of Louisville Hospital said two people were in critical condition in the burn unit. Eighteen people were treated and discharged at that hospital or other health care centers.

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The airport is 7 miles (11 kilometers) from downtown Louisville, close to the Indiana state line, residential areas, a water park and museums. The airport resumed operations on Wednesday, with at least one runway open.

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The status of the three UPS crew members aboard the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, made in 1991, was still unknown, according to Beshear. It was not clear if they were being counted among the dead.

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UPS said it was “terribly saddened.”

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The Louisville package handling facility is the company’s largest. The hub employs more than 20,000 people in the region, handles 300 flights daily and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.